Today was a good day, even if the public transport was a bit of a malarky.
Woke
up in the morning, got myself and Tao breakfast (weetbix with full
cream milk, chopped strawberries and half a banana each) and switched
the tv to ABC kids. Tao had a minor tantrum when he found out Josh had
gone to walk the dog without him, but quickly got over it when he noted
it wasn't getting much reaction from me and watched TV, not touching his
breakfast.
I made egg and ham sandwiches to take to the zoo (two
for me, one without crusts and cut up into four triangles for Tao), two
bananas, and chopped up some cheese and carrot sticks. I even
remembered to take the big bottle of water.
Changed Tao's nappy,
dressed him, put Ruan on the potty where she did a big wee, put the dog
out, got Sprat to hold the door for me and left.
Sprat joined me
later at the bus stop as her bus was due the same time as mine. Both
buses were late but hers came before mine did. Bus finally came, hopped
aboard, headed in to Perth. No problem there.
We finally got a
look at the Convention Centre as the bus pulled in to the Esplanade bus
port. I'm sure it's fairly stable but parts of it looked remarkably
precarious and to be perfectly honest, I didn't find it all that
attractive. Hope it's a lot nicer on the inside than it is on the
outside.
Pulled into the bus port and of course the first thing I
discover is that the lateness of the first bus made us miss the
connecting bus. No problem, we'll wait for the next one. Oh wait,
there is a problem, the next bus on the route past the zoo is an old
one. Can't get on. Never mind, wait for the next one. That's also an
old one.
Tao is getting impatient by this point so I blew off the
whole bus thing, went up to the information centre on the concourse
above and asked if there were other ways of getting to the zoo that
didn't involve buses. I got given a ferry timetable and directions to
the Barrack St jetty. We trotted on over there, with me being very glad
of the all terrain wheels as I strained across the park. Karma decided
to hit immediately for me this time round as the ferry runs every half
hour and there was one sitting there when we got to the jetty. Got
aboard, chugged across the river and deposited at the other jetty.
Cut
across another park to the zoo, got in, and went straight to the park
area to see if I could find the homeschool group. They weren't there,
so I took Tao to the playground and let him have a play and some lunch.
I ate my sandwiches, he had nibbles of his and some carrot and cheese
sticks. Got him to put his sandals back on ad we went off searching for
tigers and elephants seeing as that's what he wanted to see.
Found
the elephants first which got him excited, then went to see the tiger.
The tiger was pacing its enclosure, Tao paced along with it, then I
managed to convince him to watch it for a while as I changed his nappy
again.
We went and checked out the gibbons and the orang utans,
and while wandering towards the tortoises who should we encounter but
the homeschool group. Knew I'd find them eventually if I kept wandering
long enough.
Ruan was sound asleep through all this.
We
doubled back to the elephants and orang utans, the pleasantly tired Tiny
finding a second wind playing with his friends Jasmin and Cody.
Stopped by the cafe which was a bit overpriced but at least the
milkshake was big and chocolatey.
[and I got interrupted while writing this]
I
remember having good chats with the other homeschoolers, we got rained
on which woke Tao up and he was quite unhappy about it. Must remember
to put the rain shield in. We went and saw the crocodile before
leaving. Only 4.6m long, just a little one ;)
Lucked out with
the ferry again, there was one sitting there ready to go when we reached
the jetty and I sprinted for it even though you're not meant to run
with the twin pram, and Ruan was in the sling. Made it fine and also
didn't have to wait too long for the 883 back home.
Also only
needed to change two nappies each coz Tao now has a bigger bladder and
Ruan went to the toilet each time except for one I missed because we
were on some mode of transport and one that wasn't actually missed, but
she'd leaked a touch before I got her to a toilet.
Hot shower
when we got home for me and Ruan, Tao didn't want one. I could have
used a longer hotter one, I was kind of sore all over.
Notched up my self confidence by quite a lot ^_^
Now we're trying to work out where to go for our next excursion :)
Posted on: Wednesday, 28 March 2007 @ 9:39am
Blatting about