Little Superheroes at Perth Zoo

One of the places in Perth that both my little superheroes love visiting is Perth Zoo. During our first year in Perth we were at the Perth Zoo so often that we got ourselves a family membership, it was one of O's most favourite places as a toddler.

After L came along, he too fell in love with the animals at the zoo. One of the very first times that we took L to the zoo he ended up in meltdown mode but a walk to see the elephants soon distracted him from the meltdown.

The zoo runs a marvellous program titled "A to Zoo" for toddlers. Each session is based on a particular animal at the zoo. The sessions include songs, reading a story book based on the animal and some craft. L loved these sessions, especially going to visit the animal at the conclusion of the session.

So it made sense that one of the places that both of the little superheroes were desperate to visit before we left Perth was the zoo.

So without much further ado, what follows are some of the little superheroes favourite snaps of their favourite animals from our final zoo visit!

The Cassowary, or Dinosaur bird as L calls him!

I love the meerkats. I could spend hours just sitting, watching them play.

Both O and L were fascinated by the comparison board of the plants and animals in Australia and in the Amazon Rainforest. O conducted a short math lesson with L about graphs! L just wanted to open and close the boards!

We had to do two tours of the Nocturnal house just so that L could see his new favourite animal, the ghost bats.

One little monkey, I mean superhero, pretending to be an orangutan! O loves the orangutans! She could spend hours watching them play and talking to them through the glass when she was a toddler.

This gorgeous old man is Hsing Hsing. It saddened me to hear that he passed away on the 18th of December but it does make my heart happy that we were able to see him one more time before he passed. At 42 years of age, Hsing Hsing was the oldest male Sumatran Orangutan at Perth Zoo. As Perth Zoo so eloquently stated - "At 42 and a half years of age, Hsing Hsing was a very special member of the Perth Zoo family and the dominant male in our orangutan colony. He stood out with his impressive dreadlocks and loud vocal calls. He touched the hearts of so many and gained respect by all who worked with him. He was a larger than life orangutan!" Goodbye Hsing Hsing.

Sensory break time.

The Jabiru, a very majestic bird that brings back memories of my childhood.

Aww, Mummy and baby snuggling in a tree. L told me that the baby was just like him because he hangs onto me like a baby koala, just like this little one was.

L is fascinated by this gorilla sculpture at the entrance of the zoo, and always has been. Every time we visit the zoo he has to sit and inspect every part of the gorilla and the baby!

And that's it - our Perth adventures have been wrapped up and are now fabulous memories and now we move onto new adventures in Queensland. So stay tuned!

Perth - Our Home Town .... For now!

Perth .... this is our home .... for now. However in a little under two weeks we will be relocating back to Queensland.

We came to Perth in 2010 and after a few short weeks, it came to feel like home. It felt like we had been living in the glorious city for years.

One of the things that I really love about Perth is the amount of free and very low cost family activities that are available throughout the city, the Swan Valley and the surrounding suburbs. The little superheroes certainly have their favourite activities to do and places to visit so over the next two weeks, we've decided to try and visit as many of our favourite places as we're honestly not sure when we'll be back in Perth for a visit. O is a very sentimental child so she has been hinting about all the places that she would like to visit before we head back to Queensland.

Last week it was afternoon tea at our favourite chocolate factory. I have a feeling that one of the only reasons that the little superheroes like going to the chocolate factory is to find out the theme of the over sized chocolate display that is in their showroom. In fact the first thing that they both do when ever we go to the chocolate factory is race to the display and "ooo" and "ahh" over what they find. Last week it was an alien landscape!

On Saturday just gone, we decided on an impromptu outing into the city. O and L love wandering around, looking at all the sculptures and visiting one of their favourite city arcades, London Court.

There are numerous sculptures throughout the city, one of L's favourites are the kangaroos gathered around a watering hole on St George's Terrace so a visit there was a must! Visiting the sculptures throughout the city is also a small sensory break for both O and L. A chance to sit down and take some time out.

Out of the front of St Martins Centre there is a series of five sculptures commemorating the 175th Anniversary of Western Australia. L just had fun running around between the sculptures. O just had to shake hands, ask for directions and then tried to blend in with the sculptures!

We then ran into the big man in the red suit. O was suitably impressed, shook hands with him and then proceeded to tell him what she wanted for Christmas. This was a huge improvement from previous years when the only time we could get her even close to Santa to say hello was to go to a Sensory Santa session. Three smiling photos in three years, winning!

L on the other hand, he hid behind Daddy and then took off as fast as his legs could carry  him. L still isn't overly sure about saying hello to Santa. L would however sit on Santa's big red chair for a photo but only after telling us - "if you see him, you gotta tell me so I can run away!"

We then found an oversized Christmas bauble made entirely out of fairy lights. Apparently it was a light jail!

After that it was time to visit London Court and it just happens to be their 80th birthday this year. The court is wonderful at any time of the year - medieval style buildings, old English store fronts, castle style gates, you get the picture. 

Today there was also a convict doing free face painting, street performers, a town crier and a bobby, complete with bobby hat, doing some balloon tying.

And what is a city trip without a ride on the ferry across the Swan River to the South Perth shoreline for an ice cream! This is when the little superheroes just chilled out. The father of one of O's friends is a captain for the ferry company so they were quite disappointed to find that he wasn't the captain of our ferry! Never the less, they did enjoy the ride.

This outing was the first in a long time that L walked for the majority of the time - usually one of ends up carrying him so the fact that he wanted to walk was wonderful. By the end of the day I'm not sure who was more tired, us or the little superheroes.

But considering that both O and L were tearing around outside with our neighbours children at 10 o'clock at night while I was inside trying desperately to stay awake, I'm fairly certain that the little superheroes were NOT worn out!