Zoo, Waterslides and Fireworks

Historically I have associated zoos with money making machines and a part of me has felt saddend by the restricted homes of many of its occupants. The kids and I visited the Monarto zoo today and my view of zoos has changed entirely. The Monarto Zoo sits about 10km outside of Murray Bridge, a quick easy day's break from the doldrums of Mum and her school agenda. Given the size of the zoo, similar to Dubbo but larger, we loaded the 'zoo' bus and toured the grounds. You can occasionally disembark and grab a closer look at the animals or listen to zookeeper chats if kids are feeling cooperative. What amazed me is the immensity of the breeding program at the zoo and in turn the role zoos have played at returning near extinct animal populations to at the least protected numbers. The exchange of animals between zoos and the reintroduction of animals into the wild is huge. Also to the kids' amusement there was a touch/feel section where you could look at the bones/fur of the range of animals who have lived at the zoo and have met an their ultimate demise. Quite cool to look at the hoof of a giraffe or hold the lower portion of an emu leg. (That was Jen - now it's my turn)

Yesterday we decided to do a day in Adelaide and its surrounds as soon we'll be heading out of the area - onwards ho! With the aim of checking out the Science and Tech museum we put ourselves at the whim of Fiona. some loose instructions from the internet and info centre personnel - none with any real idea of whether this place actually currently existed. In the end we found it in the old (and hidden) stock exchange building with the heart dropping sign on the door - "Open Monday to Friday 9 am to 5 pm" - it was Saturday. After some lunch in the local food fair we decided to head to Glenelg - a suburb of Adelaide with a beach and amusement park. En route a shiny blue falcon sped by followed by 2 police cars in hot pursuit. From the road we could see the helicopter above tracking the chase - and we thought we could only experience 'Cops' in LA! All very exciting. The Glenelg Amusement complex was suprisingly new with 3 large water slides, an arcade of games, mini-golf, a carousel and a very slow ferris wheel. The slides were great - would've been right up Uncle Fraser and Craig's alley. We found a nice wharf restaurant area and gawked at the tarty wedding celebrations going on (A short white dress just didn't seem appropriate!) while enjoying some very fresh sushi/sashimi. A walk on the beach, a short drive, some serious parking searching and a couple km walk brought us to Victoria Park for the opening of the Adelaide festival - a fireworks display put on by Group F - from France. Our rather late-ish arrival put us a bit far back from the lower firework displays which seemed likely to set the local woods on fire - you could imagine the headlines! The higher and louder fireworks were as usual pretty spectacular and Cole was jumping up and down in excitement and awe. We're off to the Barossa today and the top of Mount Lofty. Looking forward to hearing and maybe seeing Canada woop some American ass in the gold medal ice hockey game which should reach our shores tomorrow! Go Canada!