Into The Jungle… I mean, ‘Bush’

10/08/21

After Oma took Lake for a morning bike ride, and then brought him home for a nap, Opa was on listening for Lake duty and Inge, Mike and I went for a walk.

It was an extremely fog filled morning, making it impossible to see much beyond what was right in front of us.
Inge said she likes the feeling of being surrounded by it, where as Mike and I said it gave more of an entrapped feeling 🙈 

I had to photograph one of the disgusting ‘naked slugs’ they have 🙈
Making for interesting little obstacles to avoid stepping on, along the way 🤪
We dropped by a dairy farm where you can buy fresh milk from a little tap in a shop.

I’m not a milk drinker, so I for sure didn’t appreciate the unrefined flavours 🙈

Mike and Inge liked it though… I just liked the other yard occupants 🤪

As we entered some tree covered areas, it seemed as though it was lightly raining, but that’s how thick the fog/mist was.

Creating enough moisture on the leaves, to drip down on us.

In the end we did a 6.85 km loop and our worked up hunger was filled with kibbeling 🤤

Crispy, salty, fried bits of fish with tartar sauce 👌🏻
Once lunch was eaten, we  were off to visit the zoo! 😁

The fog had lifted and the sun came out, making it a lovely day to be wandering around, exploring and viewing the animals ☺️🌤🐅🦍🐠

We all enjoyed ourselves, Lake being possibly more distracted by other attending children, than the actual animals at times, but he was happy, so we were happy 😋

We paused our animal viewing for a hot chocolate, caramel macchiato, cappuccino and poppy seed muffin ☺️

All of which were tasty and enjoyed 👌🏻☕️

After being thoroughly entertained by the gorillas…

It was then time to go into ‘the bush’ part of the zoo.

‘The bush’ referring to what we would call ‘the jungle’ back home.

The thickly humid air hit us like a wall, and our light jackets and sweaters were quickly removed, as we searched for any tropical bird sightings.

From the bush, came the ocean, and we wandered into a slowly darkening world of the underwater 🐠🦀🐙🐡

As I carried Lake through the dark tunnels separating the illuminated tanks, he nervously picked at my fingers with his own, being uncertain of this new surrounding.

The vibrant colors and unique shapes of the animals we so rarely see, meant that we took our time.

Sharing in the childlike wonder, at the creations before us.

One place that the wonder left and the feeling of unease came, was when we turned the corner, and were in front of a floor to ceiling tank, in a darkened, cave like room.
The dark, thick, inky blue, hiding murky shapes of some very large things just beyond our field of vision.
Until they swam up to the glass, and we were greeted with the relaxed, underwater sort of saunter, of sharks 🦈

I hate them. Mike wasn’t overly comfortable either. We went. We saw. We felt gross. We quickly left 🥴😂🙈
You can safely say we are not the couple that will ever want to go snorkelling and or cage diving 🤪 

Finally, we wandered out of the ocean and through the desert, before making our way to the zoo gift shop.

Where Lake got a cute little stuffed sting ray from his Oma, and then we headed to the entrance to take a couple of photos with the animal statues.

19,000 steps later, we drove home, happy that we’d been able to take the time to go and experience it together ☺️

Sadly it was the last time for wearing of this particular shirt for Lake, as his belly hung out more than it stayed covered, but I’m glad it had its last finale  there 😉

A special delivery arrived at the house that evening. It turned out to be a box of entirely pistachio flavoured macarons from Tout, for me, from Mike, for our next day’s wedding anniversary 💗 

(What’s so sad, is that come the day we departed, we both thought to ourselves to eat the remaining macarons, and then we both forgot 😭)