Thursday, May 25, 2006

Daytrippers


I went to the shittest zoo in the world yesterday - the kinda place you shouldn't go if you're easily offended my animal cruelty, or just generally offended. Once you got past the Marmosets being kept in garden sheds though it was fucking hilarious!!

First off it was down some dirt track, that, had it been raining we would have quickly become lodged in - you needed some sort of off road, four wheel drive vehicle to access this "zoo". When we got inside we had to wait in the ticket office/cafe/gift shop/animal hospital for some guy with a teddy boy haircut to show up and sell us tickets. We later saw him officiating over the pony rides and messing with the snakes - he was clearly management.
I can't really describe the "zoo" properly, it's one of those has to be seen to be believed places but maybe if I go over a few incidents you might get the vibe of this particular tourist attraction.
They had this ring tailed lemur (my new favourite animal) that was stoned or maybe tranquilised. It was sat in it's shed with it's little head pressed up against the window, just staring. Occassionally it's fellow lemur would come over and hug it.

For some crazy ass reason they let people take their dogs inside the "zoo" and we saw three shih tzus and a sausage dog that were either looking shit scared or taunting the goats. They had a leopard in there that was absolutely beautiful (apparently he once belonged to a millionaire who couldn't look after him anymore, wtf?, I thought that stopped happening in the 1800's), but he wanted to eat the sausage dog so they both sat quivering, one in sheer fear, one in anticipation.

I got very excited at the prospect of feeding the animals and went to buy myself a feed tub. I raced back out and started handing over bits of carrot to the disillusioned lemurs. One took a bit off me but immeadiately threw it on the floor where there were rabbits! Rabbits and lemurs together in the same enclosure - exactly as it would be in the wild. WTF? I went to give some more carrot to the more excitable lemur in another enclosure and he was glad of it but then I saw the list of animals you were allowed to feed and lemur wasn't on there so I slowly backed away, hoping carrot couldn't do much harm to natives of Madagascar.

We saw an animal called Geffory's Cat which just looked like your average cat. Maybe it was just some dude named Geffory's cat. Who knows? Each animal seemed to have some Oprah worthy sob story about how they came to be at this "zoo" - mainly, some other zoo didn't want it.

They had a porcupine named Cuddles who had a little notice next to him saying 'Please don't pet, Cuddles'. Yeah, that was about it.

Finally I had to go back in the ticket office/cafe/gift shop/animal hospital to buy souvenirs. I settled on a lemur and called him Larry. He now has a drinking problem. I was hungry but I wasn't going to have anything to eat there - I've got my suspicions that they're resourceful when it comes to the food, if you know what I mean. I'd love you tell you name of this place so you could visit it yourself but I don't want to be sued.

The real Larry who ate my carrot

One of the exhibits. People travel for miles to see that injured pigeon - maybe it got bit by a terrapin?

9 comments:

Becky Heineke said...

Wow, that's by far the best zoo story I've ever heard, even if it does have the unpleasant aftertaste of obvious animal cruelty. Ha! I'm sorry but that injured pigeon sign is fucking HILARIOUS! Are you sure this was a legal operation? Your zoo idea from a few posts ago sounded significantly more on the up-and-up than this place. Aw, points for making me laugh about miserable animals! :)

Nothing Really Matters said...

Sounds such a lovely place I really wanna visit! Maybe u could take over the place a revamp it! Making 5 star accommodation for the animals!

Anonymous said...

Is that you or Anneka in the top photo?

britpopbaby said...

That's me riding the pig. My enigma is dissolving...

Anonymous said...

I'm the pig.

Only joking. I'm way hotter than the pig.

Becky Heineke said...

Yeah, I've noticed you've been kinda taking a step back on the mystique lately. And why not, you internet vixen, you?

britpopbaby said...

Well I finally got my phone to laptop photo uploading mojo to work again so thought I'd show my face.

Miffed67 said...

britpop...I am shocked....SHOCKED, I say! Riding pigs? Giving carrots to lemurs? What's next?

Awww! Animal cruelty aside, that lemur was damn cute! Poor thing...

Anonymous said...

http://www.abf90.dial.pipex.com/bco/geoffrey.htm