Our annual passes for Tierpark Goldau were expiring at the end of the year, so we decided to go for one last visit while Maddie was here. Since we already have the tradition of visiting the Zurich Zoo every New Year's Day, we wanted to have at least one day in between zoo visits. This meant, that even though it was drizzly and overcast, we still headed out for an adventure. Oh, and we left Chris home again, since part of his Christmas present was having some true downtime. No job, no kids, no noise in the house. I get downtime pretty regularly, Chris hardly ever. He said it was the perfect present. 🙂
It was drizzling and a bit chilly when we arrived at the park, but this worked to our advantage. We got a parking spot right next to the entrance! That never happens. We usually end up in the annex parking a half a mile away, so this was exciting stuff. There were quite a few animals out and about, despite the bad weather, but sadly no babies this time. The old bear enclosure was fun, you could even go into their hibernation cave. I was a bit nervous about some one falling into the water that used to separate the bears from the people. That was still there, and from the bear side, there isn't anything between you and a cold, slimy swim. Eventually, there were too many close calls and I hauled them all out of there.
The long slide was closed due to the weather, so we just went straight into the fun part of the zoo, where you get to walk around with the free roaming animals and feed them. We had three boxes of food between us, which was pretty good since I knew Alexandra, Noah and Nick don't actually like to feed the animals. They terrify the younger two, and Nick just thinks it's nasty that they actually like your hand. Blech! :) Maddie was a bit hesitant at first, but Sarah showed her the trick of holding your hand nice and flat for them to lick the pellets off of, and soon she was an old pro.
Sometimes when we have come, the zoo has been so crowded that the animals aren't really hungry and we take a long time to empty our feed boxes. Today, with the crowds being so thin, it was completely the opposite. The animals were starving and pretty much stampeded toward anyone with an outstretched hand. They are only deer and bighorn sheep, so it isn't like they can actually hurt you, but they do get quite demanding at times. In fact, we ended up having to have one person with food draw away the animals, and then the rest of us would scurry past to safer ground. I thought it was hilarious, Alexandra and Noah, not so much.
While we were in the Bartgeier (native vulture) exhibit, it really started raining hard. Torrential downpour would be an adequate description. So we decided to stay under cover and have our lunch next to the stuffed vulture! Fortunately, I had brought hot dogs that didn't need to be cooked, as Chris gently pointed out before I left the house that there probably wouldn't be a bonfire going in the fire pit due to the weather and I needed to plan on NOT grilling our lunch. ha! Seriously, how can I be in charge of five innocent little souls and still be so clueless sometimes? By the time the last crumbs of bread had disappeared, the skies had cleared and we had pretty much no more rain for the rest of the day. Still a bit cold though, so we kept our jackets on.
Just as we passed the bunny enclosure, Sophie showed me how loose her tooth was getting. She said she wasn't going to wiggle it anymore so it wouldn't fall out in the park. Famous last words. We hadn't gotten more than 100 feet, before she triumphantly held out her hand with the tooth inside!
Then she accidentally dropped the tooth, right here,
and we all looked for a bit before giving up. Can you blame us? But she was cheered up with the knowledge that the tooth fairy brings toys for lost teeth, instead of money, and didn't worry about it too much more.
Maddie was the only one brave enough to climb the ladder and go feed the miniature goats, but we did pass them some food through the fence. Apparently, it wasn't enough. :)
We headed over to the bears very last, after a small detour because we missed the turnoff to their new home the first time around. It is a gorgeous, gigantic enclosure, but not directly on the main path through the park, and I am not so great at reading signs anyway. but we didn't get too far off track before realizing we had made a wrong turn, so it was all good in the end.
It was a fun day, if a bit damp, and Maddie entertained the kids with fun stories the whole way home.