Cuddling a Red Panda – There is nothing better. A decade ago if you wanted an “up close and personal” experience with exotic animals in a zoo you had to fly to New Zealand where the Auckland Zoo, conveniently promoted by the Animal Planet channel, offered paying visitors the opportunity to “pat a cheetah”. Today most zoos have a similar program but few zoos can boast the richness and range of the “close encounters” at the privately owned Mogo Zoo, 12 km south of Batemans Bay. The sign at the entrance proudly proclaims: “Encounters” and lists opportunities to get up close and personal to a Red Panda; Feed a Tiger; have Meerkats check out your hair for worms; sail out to Lemur Island; feed an African Serval and a lion; walk the dingoes and get intimate with a snake. Every one of them (and I have done most of them) is unforgettable. There is nothing quite so heady and captivating as having a meerkat clambering all over your head looking for the worms the keeper has dropped in your hair; or an African Serval (they are one of the smaller African cats usually weighing around 7-18kg) purring as it rubs itself up against you; or being asked to keep your fist clenched so your fingers are not an additional culinary temptation as you feed a lion; or, most delightfully, feeding grapes to a Red Panda, surely one of the cutest creatures on the planet. These are not perfunctory contacts. The lemurs, free to roam their island, are approached by row boat and will dance around you as they are fed; the huge male lion is so close you can feel its hot breath as it reaches through the wire fence for another chicken neck; and the Nepalese red panda will clamber out of its tree and sit on your knee gazing at you with the largest and most inquisitive eyes as it carefully takes a grape in its tiny paws. For just a few minutes you can understand why David Attenborough gets all soft and sentimental in the presence of wild animals. It really is the best experience imaginable. Check out aussietowns.au/town/mogo-nsw for more photos of me being hopelessly addicted to animals.
Posted on: Sat, 24 Jan 2015 03:44:17 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015