Koalas in Edinburgh?

Occasionally gg and family decide they will be tourists for the day and go visit places of interest in and around Edinburgh. So a few weeks ago when the kids had nagged on at me for several weeks I decided to give in and took them to Edinburgh Zoo. To let you understand Edinburgh Zoo is actually only about 10 mins on the bus from the centre of Edinburgh. On a nice sunny day it is a wonderful place to be, but on a rainy day...... However the day we decided to go was a beautiful sunny day and lots of pix were taken of the animals. (So please bare with me there will be lots of animal piccies to follow!)

Edinburgh Zoo is owned by The Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. The Society was founded by an Edinburgh lawyer, Thomas Gillespie in March 1909. He was a visionary and enthusiast and it only took four years for him to gather enough support and money to enable the Society to buy an 85 acre site to the west of Edinburgh. He bought it for £17,000 with help from the City of Edinburgh Council.

Edinburgh Zoo was opened to the public on 22 July 1913, and was incorporated by Royal Charter later that year. However, it was only in 1948, following a visit by HRH King George VI, that the Society was granted the privilege of adding the prefix 'Royal' to its name. It remains the only zoo with a Royal Charter in the United Kingdom.

Anyway I digress.....what about our visit? Well we took the shuttle "bus" up to the top of the hill to begin out tour. (Easier to walk down the hill that up!!!) There were a few "must see" animals on our list, especially the Saki Monkeys.

This is a White Faced Saki Monkey. Saki monkeys can be found in northern and central South America, extending from the south of Colombia over Peru in northern Bolivia and into the central part of Brazil.



Why were these monkeys on our "list"....well the boys school sponsor the Saki Monkeys at Edinburgh Zoo, and Robert is a Saki Monkey monitor! (That is NOT easy to say!!!) What does the Saki Monkey Monitor do? Well he is responsible for collecting the money from his class mates every Wednesday. Because of this he wanted to see a real one. Good enough reason for me! We actually spend quite a while watching the monkeys "play" in there enclosure.

As we wandered down through this vast site on the hill we passed may animals, like

the Jaguar (I'm quite pleased with this pic, as you wouldn't think there was a thick piece of toughened glass between it and me!)

Greater one horned rhino








Madagascar Ring-tailed lemur. Boy were they fun to watch, frolicking in the sunshine. This one was sitting eating an apple and much easier to catch on camera.....the others were far to quick for the shutter speed on my ancient digital camera!





However I think my favorites have to be the penguins, and if you ever visit Edinburgh Zoo, be sure to be there at around 2pm, as they let the penguins out of their enclosure and have a penguin parade!

At this point I was going to put a pic of Robert watching the penguin parade but blogger wont let me! I was then going to post some pix of the penguins swimming underwater, coz that is really fascinating to watch, but again no can do!

OK so why the title of my post? Well earlier this year Edinburgh Zoo got two Koalas from a Californian Zoo. Ronan wanted to go see them as he is doing a project on Australia at school. I would have posted a pic here of the Koalas but again blogger has let me down! I will try and post the pix later when blogger allows!

One last thing before I go, British Summertime is officially over! The clocks went back an hour last night, so early dark and dark in the mornings.....yeuch!