After stuffing our faces with pizza, we drove to Paradise Valley Wildlife Park. The lions had just been fed, and were munching away on their beef bones. The two older females really didn't care that we were within a metre of them:
A younger male was irritating one female, who kept up a very low-pitched growl, warning him to back off.
You can see here how close we were to them!
We wandered up to the lion cub enclosure, where about 20 people were already in with the lion cub. We stayed for about 10 minutes, getting a quick pat, but the enclosure was far too crowded. There were all sorts of interesting animals, including a Thar, llama, goats, black sheep, donkeys, Kea, and a possum asleep in a treestump.
These are a couple of the kea running round, being silly:
We got back to the lion cub enclosure around 4.30. By now, it was 2 hours after the scheduled feeding time, and most of the tourists had already gone through the place, and gone home.
Chase, the lion cub, was pretty tired by now, and the keeper was giving him some quiet time. She let the four of us in, and then opened two doors so the cub had the full run of his enclosure, instead of the half he gets when it's full of people.
We got to play chase with Chase! He sucked my thumb, and nommed on my fingers. His hair was very coarse, and more like a brush than a cat or dog's hair. He chased us around and around, leaping up and wrapping his paws around as high as he could reach. A truly amazing and awesome experience.
We returned home on Sunday, and made it to the Harvest Church Mid-Winter Christmas party!
What a fantastic weekend.
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