4th December 2010
Weather forecasts were contradictory for Saturday’s weather until the day before. However, my gut feeling and statistical analysis said it would be sunny on Saturday. In addition, it would be hot and angry sun this day. The fact remains that all the tourist places hardly have the stuff that an Herbivore eats... :) Hence, I prepared coconut rice a day before. Late in the Friday evening, Sravan with his magical abilities convinced mom & dad not to take bath the next day, as we had to leave early the next day.
We saw dad walking into the living area at 7.20 am which is when realised we had to get up. We were targeting 9.00 am start. Although every one stuck to the rule of not taking bath, each one of us seemed to be busy with their usual stuff. Dad taking his own time to freshen up. Mom wanted to sweep the house before leaving.Sravan relaxing in the easy chair watching everyone utilising bathroom. I was busy packing stuff for the journey. After a while, I insisted Sravan to help me out for packing. We packed tea in flask, cookies, coconut rice, mixture and nonetheless water. Well, it was time to decide the attire. Mom was not willing to wear her new chudidars as she hasn’t taken bath .Both of us influenced mom to wear my chudidar.Dad wore his dhila dhala formal shirt on the denim .Again our influence led him to change his shirt to Lee casual shirt. We finished our breakfast and started at 9.30 am .We boarded a 9.47 am train to Parliament station from where boarded a train to Werribee at 10.24 am. Mom and dad both looked very smart and young .We took multiple snaps at parliament station giving references to the movie “Dil Chahta hain” as couple of scenes from this were shot here.
Happy that we reached Werribee station in 10 mins to an hour, we went to the bus stop that would take us to Werribee zoo. It was a scorching sun and our thirst increased even more when noticed the next bus is only at 12.15 pm.I thought of hiring a cab would save us time. I called up the cab services asking for a cab pick up. I was told that it would not be long. Fifteen minutes past, we had no clue of the cab we hired. We decided we would finish our lunch here before we board the bus. We were not sure if the bus we boarded goes to the zoo, hence we asked the driver .The driver says, “I am quite new to this, you might have to ask the master...” Well the master appeared to be smoking outside while waiting for people to board. I am sure iphone owns my karma chips; hence, it pays me back every time we set ourselves for journey. We checked in iphone if we were nearing the zoo. We saw a big board indication Werribee zoo... and we got down there.
You can count on fingers, the people at the zoo gate lined up for tickets. We bought a ticket for the 2.30 pm safari that lasts for 45 minutes. Well we had an hour’s time. The brochures given were very illustrative with an attractive map. With the intention of seeing part of it in an hour we head towards the birds section. After few minutes, we realised we have taken another route, which is a round about of the zoo having cheetah etc.It was a lazy summer afternoon, all the animals seem to be relaxing under the shades of the tree. The speciality of the zoo being open … it seemed to be disguise to us in this sunny afternoon. We could see a cheetah sleeping... another one sitting with the face the other side. The hippopotamus seems to be chilling out in water. The only animal which we could see completely was poor monkey who was trying to bite the carrots someone has thrown .There were name labels which read wild dogs etc … but it seemed to be a deserted place with not a single fly in that space. Hoping rain can let the animals cheer up and we could see some of them as walked around the walkway. By now, everyone was disappointed and highly strained. We decided to rest for couple of minutes before we start safari tour.
Inspirational were dad’s words “I think Safari would be interesting and good.” We looked forward to the Safari. We boarded the safari bus that had AC and it was quite relaxing. The journey started with the minimal introduction of the guide. We head towards the African savannah. It was a different experience of seeing zoo animals directly. Our bus went quite near to different animals .I really do not remember some of the names... but few looked exactly like Deer but they were not. We were given the samples of the horns, hairs etc… Some were like cows with huge horns .After watching not so popular animals... we were taken to Zebra guess this was the first time of watching a zebra so closely. Slowly we went to Rhinoceros that were lazy but quite dangerous .After minutes of drive we were taken to Giraffe. They were five, few young few old. They were so pretty and had a beautiful skin. The guide asked a question on the Giraffe’s tall neck,” Human neck has 7 bones in the neck, how many does a Giraffe’s neck have?” Unable to guess every one wondered how many? The guide says, “They also have 7 but huge bones.” We were give bone samples and they were indeed huge. We saw the Giraffes walking all together in symmetry and were amazed to see their togetherness.
After watching animals in a safari tour, the thing which struck me …”Every type of animal tried to be peaceful in groups …why can’t a human be happy being together. There is always a conflict when 2 come together” Refreshed by the beauty of nature’s creation our Safari tour ended. All of us satisfied within felt “It’s worth a ticket.” It was time we should start looking for a return bus to Werribee station. We planned to head back at 4.47 pm that is when the bus can pick us up. We still had 30 minutes time…we checked the shop at the zoo. I wanted to buy something for remembrance. Mom, Dad & Sravan said “NO” out of disappoint of having not seen many animals. After a while of makhan marofying Sravan sanctions me a budget of 4-5 dollars on the item I was allowed to purchase. With the pleasant memories of beautiful giraffe, I decide to buy a lovely glass giraffe that costed 10 dollars.
With a first time safari experience, everyone seemed to be remotely satisfied and we left the zoo. With the well connecting public transport, we reached home at 6.30pm.After freshening up…dad says, “We should play a nice telugu Comedy movie to cheer up ourselves.” Seems like dad was not happy on the returns to the ticket cost. We watched “kick” movie, everyone seems to have cheered up, and the fatigue seems to have vanished by now.
Decided I would take Mom & Dad to the Melbourne Zoo that is a caged zoo and certainly would expect there would be many animals. At the dusk of this day, I guess we had a tick mark against Werribee zoo. Not so exciting but the place has its own beauty of space, peace and tranquillity that can be enjoyed best when Sun is not angry on the Earth.
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