Yesterday I mentioned I went on a slumber party at the zoo. I know, you wish your weekend was this excellent, but it’s true. On Saturday 25 other grown ups and 2 actual kids spent the night at Wellington Zoo.
Running during the warmer months of Wellington’s weather, these overnight sojourns are usually geared at a (much) younger crowd, and I don’t exactly remember how I agreed to go along (I may have been a little drunk) but I am ever so glad I did.
On Saturday afternoon I panic-packed (MY SPECIALITY) when the rain looked like it wasn’t really going to ease and the team leader suggested we bring wet weather gear. I DO NOT own wet weather gear. I packed my leather jacket and a cotton hat. That’s as close as I get.
Thankfully it was sufficient for trudging around the dark and eerily empty zoo in the darkening hours of the evening. Spotlight on bats and red pandas, on giraffes that ignored us, on animals staying out of the rain. We made parcels of popcorn and dates for the monkeys, we saw the giant zoo freezers, we tried not to trip and fall on the stairs in the rain & the dark.
Our bedroom was opposite Monkey Island and we spent the evening, in true slumber party fashion, eating treats, painting fingernails, drawing each other pictures, playing games, and talking about travel. It was all incredibly wholesome.
Tucked up in our sleeping bags, on coffin-shaped mattresses on the floor, serenaded by monkeys and by snoring, sleeping was not the best. Although, it was the best I’ve ever slept at the zoo (except I guess that would also make it the WORST I have ever slept at the zoo). We woke to both iPhone and Gibbon related alarms. At 7am it was the earliest I have been awake on a Sunday (not counting still being awake from the Saturday) in a long long time.
The weather had broken overnight and the sky was blue, the trees were green, the water was … kind of green too, and the monkeys were brown. It was just the best – bright daylight, the first sun both we and the zoo had seen in almost a week, and pretty much all of the animals were out roaming their enclosures. It made for some pretty photographs.
(I think the giraffe was making up for ignoring us last night)
(I said hippos are my favourite but I think I’ll have to change that to the Red Panda)
The Zoo Slumber Party was, all in all, delightful.
