LONDON ZOO
November 12, 2012
It was on 22nd
September, 2012. After having a heavy breakfast at 8 a.m., we got ready and
headed towards the train station. Reached Hounslow at 11:30 a.m., got our one-day
travel card worth 8.50 pounds and proceeded for London Waterloo.
While on the train, we
changed the plan and got off at Vauxhall. Took a bus to Camden London
Right behind the main door
stood a photographer who clicked every visitor’s picture on the way to queue. It could be later collected after our zoo
observation had finished. We three clicked ourselves together thinking it was
just a formality.
As expected, the queue was
quite long on a warm sunny Saturday (6/7 rows of around 10 people/row). However,
we reached the front after around 5-10 minutes. Traveling through Southwest
trains made us pay 46 pounds (buy 1 get 1 free) in discount.
Excited as we were, gorilla was
the first thing to look at. Reptiles were the next. There was information that Harry
Potter film scene while Harry talked to the snakes was shot in that place. There
were scary vipers, pythons, boa etc.
We walked around and took snacks.
I found the London zoo quite similar to the zoo
in Nepal
Moving
towards the penguin beach area, we found more crowd and children there. Perhaps
because of the blessing warm sunlight on the very day. We clicked pictures of
the man-made blue sea. Some penguins stood on land; some were swimming and some
were being fed by the zoo staffs. The distance between the glass bars and
visitors was close enough to make the birds and humans feel each other and feel
nature. It looked lovely. We were reminded of Happy Feet and The
March of Penguins movies and were chatting about how they leave impact upon
us. We relaxed and watched penguins swim, from the wide staircase beside the
pool. Felt blessed.
It was time to watch other
animals. Lioness and her babies were sleeping and resting on the rock. On the
way, we passed through the tiger area. There also was an insect’s area which was
a bit suffocating place and could not watch much. However, the exhibition of big
red ants eating leaves and breaking them into tiny pieces was worth watching.
Walking our way, we reached to
kids’ area made by kids. There were meerkats on this section. They looked
awesome, especially when one of them stood on the top of the rock (believed to
guard their community from danger). Monkeys’ area had notices to remain extra
cautious as there were no cages and seemed a natural habitat. They were walking
on the way and swinging on the trees. Some were even climbing on us. But they
were small.
We came across an area which
looked like hills. There were ostrich-like birds and other small animals. Some
were seen at the top of the hill. Right where we were standing was a closed restaurant
mentioning it was used for ceremonies.
Then we moved towards giraffe
section. They looked awesome. We never had a close-up view of them. There were three
of them. One was being fed the tree branches. We were excited to see it eat. In
fact, the crowd was excited too. Everyone wanted to click themselves with it.
We found its eyes lovely (looked like big black kajal eyes). Going past
the few reindeers, we then walked through the rainforest.
African rainforest felt dark,
damp, high in humidity and dense. Monkeys and other animals along with big
trees were seen. We appreciated the creation of effect (felt a moment of being
in African forests). Interestingly, there was an animal which hung itself on the
iron rod of the walls and crawled around. However, it became scary when it came
below us. I was certain of its attack but, to my relief, it seemed cool and
continued its way. We moved out.
Next thing was to walk
through the woodland. It was meant to resemble African forest once more. The way
was covered with tiny wood pieces. On the way was meerkat again and seal-like
animals. The latter grabbed attention of many people because they were in a
group and made unique sounds. Heaping over each other, they kept falling down
which looked so innocent. It was as if they were having a group photo and all
wanted being clicked. We clicked them.
The last section to observe
was aquarium. We browsed through the place as we were running out of time. We
hurriedly finished our lunch and exited the observation. Since we began our
journey around the midday, we could not watch birds’ area. On the way to the
exit door, we could see the crowd looking at their pictures taken earlier. We
searched ours too. Found it came in a pack. How tempting!!! We paid 20 pounds for
our pictures with background of varieties of animals. Had a happy day.
