Continuing our tradition of celebrating Yule with the animals, the Snook and I planned a trip out to Dubbo to visit the Western Plains Zoo. We booked in to the Zoofari Lodge, rented a car, and took off on the six hour drive west from Sydney. Unfortunately about five hours into the trip we got a call from the lodge explaining that they’d had to evacuate and close the zoo… because there was a murderer on the loose. Seriously. That kinda sucked. We scrambled and managed to get a room for the night, and luckily on Saturday the zoo opened up…

Fortunately the night before, we’d met some locals at the restaurant who’d recommended the early morning Keeper Walk. You get to go in before the zoo opens to the general public and see some of the “behind the scenes” areas. Here I am feeding a bit of carrot to a very funny and friendly giraffe.

Now Snookums has a turn. Giraffes tongues are really long, and he just curled the bit of carrot right up inside it. (I wondered how he got it out inside his mouth without biting his own tongue!) Everyone who fed the giraffe got a little bit of slobber on their hands, which is always fun.

I figure you’ve all seen zoo animals before so I’ve left a lot of the boring pictures out, but I just couldn’t resist this one. Giraffes are so endearingly goofy looking.

Snookums in the deer-petting enclosure. (He has his pants tucked in his socks so they don’t get caught in the spokes of the bicycles we rented. He’s not a dork.)

You’d think I would’ve been more comfortable around the deer, seeing as how they’re the only animal in the zoo I’m used to from home. But no, they scared the crap out of me.

Attention my fellow Americans. This is a wombat. It’s a short, stumpy legged little marsupial. (Its pouch is upside-down because they dig a lot, and that keeps it from filling up with dirt.) This one was digging a hole…

… to have a nap in. Isn’t he adorable?

Here we are in the ‘roo and wallaby enclosure. I was a little nervous but Snookums showed me that they’re just like big lazy pussy cats.

Check me out! This is actually an ALBINO wallaby. He was very soft and nice.

This grey kangaroo was so soft; he felt like a plush toy. He also took a big liking to the Snook’s bootlaces.

See? One of the keepers actually drove up while we were in there and joked, “Hey, no feeding the animals!”

He even had a go at my sneaker!

There were a number of feedings and keeper talks scheduled throughout the day. Here we are at the otter display. I have no idea what I thought otters ate, but it was pretty gross when the keeper chucked them each a dead baby chicken. Here’s the Snook doing his imitation of the little fella behind the glass, biting the chicken’s head off.

I mentioned the bikes. See, Western Plains Zoo is so big that you can’t really walk around it. There’s a 6km circuit that you can drive around in your car, and every now and then there’s a place to park and a couple of exhibits grouped around it. The other options are to rent a bike or an electric car. As the day was cloudier (and thus less hot) than expected, we decided to rough it on bikes. It was so fun! I tell ya though, it’s hard using coaster brakes when you haven’t for about twenty years…

Here we are waiting for the cheetah keeper talk. (I know he’s doing something crazy with his eyes. He’s incapable of making a normal face when I take a picture. He’s like Calvin, always pulling faces.)

These little boys were waiting with us too. One of them told me solemnly that although the cheetah was the fastest land animal, the peregrine falcon actually travels much, much faster. They were cute.

This was a bit of an experiment. Snookums had brought along some mini-binoculars, which we were passing back and forth because the cheetah was waaaay back in the enclosure. I suggested he try to take a photo through them. This is the result. Pretty neat, and I also like the iris effect!

We’re posing on a big cement elephant next to the pachyderm enclosure…

It’s me and an elephant. They’ve got several out at the zoo, including a couple from Taronga here in Sydney. (They’ve even got the anxious one that sways back and forth; I think they’re keeping them while they finish the new elephant area over here.)

And now it’s Snookums’s turn…

This one’s for my little brother Joey, who loves koalas. This fella was the only one awake in the middle of the day. The rest were all passed out in the trees!

After the zoo, we headed up the road to the Big M, which – to my disappointment – not only did not have a big “M”, but was actually the crappiest tourist attraction I’ve ever seen. We were the only people there. We’d already made the mistake of getting out of the car though, so we felt obligated to play a game of putt-putt…

… only to discover on hole 4, AFTER I’d already pulled my ball out, that the cups were actually full of spiders. Seriously. Friggin’ FUNNEL WEBS. (The suckers are fatal. The one in this cup was dead, thank God, but STILL.) The Snook used the clubs to fetch his ball out while I did a whole body shudder.

After the Snook finished kicking my butt at Putt-Putt of Death, we hit the road pretty quickly. I paused only to snap this picture of the Shittest Stegosaurus in the World.

Sunday was Christmas Day, and we were booked in for lunch in Mudgee. We got there early so we spent some time in a local park reading and enjoying the sunshine. Families were appearing for their Christmas picnics and everyone was cheerful and friendly.

Graffiti from the park. It really seemed to sum up the whole weekend for us…

Our lunch was festive and fun, though we did get lost in the shuffle a little bit. (I think every family in Mudgee that wasn’t picnicking was at the restaurant.) Of course, the only way to finish Christmas dinner is with real Christmas pudding. (Again, for the Yanks: this is basically a really moist fruitcake, served warm with brandy butter and ice cream or custard.) YUM!

We took our time getting home, driving the long way down the Golden Highway through the Hunter Valley (wine country). The final odometer reading was well over 1000 kilometers (620+ miles), and I even managed to conquer my fear of roundabouts. I also drove across the Harbour Bridge for the first time and successfully navigated myself across Sydney. Unfortunately I do have one animal fatality to report: a pigeon committed suicide by flying straight into my window at one point. I hadn’t swerved or anything; it just came out of nowhere! The Snook can back me up on this. But it appears that for every successful car journey I make, fate will exact a price on the animal kingdom.

I still want a car.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!