We FINALLY went to the zoo today!  I’ve been singing ‘We’re going to the zoo, zoo, zoo’ for two days now!

We went back to Sharjah to Arabia’s Wildlife Centre.  It cost only Dhs15 for each adult (£2.50) and Vinay was free.  It’s not a ‘proper’ zoo…  It was all indoors and the animals are all natural to the Arabian Peninsula.  So no elephants or giraffes or anything.  But we had a great time 🙂

We started out looking at snakes.  Moved onto frogs, fish, minibeasts (I skipped that bit) and then rodents (Hub skipped that bit.  He has a rodent phobia).  The best bit was the aviary.  You can walk through it while the birds just fly around and do their thing.  I loved watching Vinay watch the birds.  Next were the nocturnal animals, baboons, hyenas, wolves, cheetahs and leopards.

Unfortunately, no photography was allowed inside and all cameras had to be handed in at the front desk.  But here’s a picture of the building (so helpful, I know):

And some pretty flowers outside…

Next door they had a Children’s Farm.  We didn’t have to pay any extra for it and photos were allowed 🙂

They had goats, sheep, ducks, horses and camels.  It was so funny to look at Vinay’s face.  He was scared (but not of the ducks)!  He’s only ever seen these animals (apart from horses) in books and on television.  He had no idea how big they would be!

He *wanted* to feed the goats, but was frightened and cried everytime we got too close. 

By the time we went round (about five minutes) he was feeling more confident and wanted to feed the camels!

Decided that would *not* be wise and went back to the goats.  But he got frightened again *eye roll*.

It was a really great afternoon and very worth it.  Especially since it was V’s first ‘animal experience’!