Perth - Zoo visit with children

Dear Zoo lovers,
The Perth Zoo is only a few kilometers away from my hostfamily, just a 10 minute car drive. But I never bothered to go there in the five months that I have spent here in Perth. Why? Because it didn't offer me anything special or new that I wanted to see and at 27 AUD entry fee for an adult I wasn't willing to pay that. During the spring school holidays and just 11 days after the birth of Éléonore my hostmother asked me to join and help her with the four kids at the Perth Zoo where she would meet two other French families with their kids to spend the day.

I took the chance to take some close-up pictures of my hostchildren.
Here is the oldest one with 5 years of age, Adéle. Isn't she adoreable? Pink and purple are her favorite colours and she loves to draw and do crafting. That is how I won her heart, by drawing castles, princesses, mermaids, horses and the like :-)

The second child is the only boy of four. At 3 years of age (he and Adéle are 3 weeks short of having exactly the same birthday) his name is Mayeul. So different from his older sister he loves to play any kind of ball sport and running and jumping which keeps me fit. But he likes drawing to a certain extent as well. For him I learned how to draw pirates, pirate ships and firemen ;-)

The third child at 21 months of age is Louise which I spend most of the time with as she doesn't go to school yet and is at daycare only one day a week. She liked me from the very beginning which is fairly unusual for her as she is normally very shy. Whenever possible I go for a pram walk with her and let her chase dogs and ducks :-)

And here is the sleeping beauty Éléonore. I have to say I am fairly proud of having been there while she was born. She sleeps a lot and doesn't cry unless she wants to be fed. Afterwards she drifts back into sleep again and just looks cute. What a perfect baby!

It is really hard to get all these little kids smile and look into the camera at the same time. This is my lovely hostmother Cécile with her three older kids. My first month with the kids was fairly hard for me and if it wasn't for her nice and caring person I think I would have left pretty soon again. But she believed in me and told me later that she could see from the beginning that I am more capable of dealing with and adjusting to the kids than the other Au Pairs before.

So there we were, together with two other mothers and in total ten kids in the Zoo with four prams. It was so different from how I would normally explore a Zoo. It was much slower, more stopping and pointing things out to the children. I lifted up Mayeul all the time, so he could see properly and manouvering one of our two prams around all the other people. A totally new experience opened up to me by simply going to the zoo! Who would have thought!

My hostfamily is a Zoo member and they have been to this zoo quite often. They concentrated on their favourite part: the African Savannah!

The zoo is made up really nicely I have to say. It reminded me a bit of the Hannover Zoo but smaller. We got to see lots of animals, like monkeys, lions, rhinoceros, zebras, giraffes and turtles.

This is for the Orangutans! Apparently these ones are an critically endangered species and the Perth Zoo is actively involved in raising their number again. Looks pretty cool but it's not really what nature is like huh?

We went on towards the elephants and at this point the kids got a bit cranky and tired from all the walking. But we haven't even seen half of the animals!

At nearly 12pm we said Goodbye to the other two families as they would have a picnic in the zoo. Due to Louise's sickness we decided to have lunch at home. But before we hit the exit we stopped by at the penguins.

Despite the very short and a bit stressful visit I enjoyed this stroll through the zoo with the kids. Of course there was the occasional crying and arguing but it was a very valuable lesson for me too. I know this sounds boring to some of you but you don't always get the chance to practice handling four children in such an challenging day trip ;-)
My next stop for the third time: the beautiful Swan Valley!
Yours zoo-with-children-visiting Stefanie