A byootaful Life

Yeah, now I’m really getting into the old photos! Remember that weekend Phill and I went to see Jamie Oliver? Well, we also went to the Melbourne Zoo, since everyone told us we absolutely had to go. First off, we stopped at the markets for some fresh jam doughnuts, since we’d heard so much about them. We were told to look out for the van but as you can see, we had no problem finding it, since the queue was halfway down the street!

We could smell the doughnuts as we waited, eagerly anticipating eating them. The line moved quickly since everyone was paying with cash and we were just as quick, grabbing a bag of piping hot doughnuts.

Mmmmmmmmmm so delicious and sugary! That’s Phill’s arm in the background – not sure why it’s there. I remember it took me a few shots to get a non-blurry picture and it was soooo hard not to eat the doughnut! We munched on our doughnuts as we wandered around the market. It was so big and everything was so cheap and fresh (well, until you got to the organic section which, while fresh, was quite expensive). If I lived in Melbourne, I’d travel to the market weekly to buy my fruit, vegetables and meat.

We caught the tram (yay!) to the zoo after a quick lunch at Nando’s, which was across the road from the market. We saw heaps of animals at the zoo, including the cutest little meerkats, but my favourite was the butterfly house. It was amazing – all the beautiful colours in their wings as they fluttered by. A couple landed in my hair and I had to be careful not to take them outside with me when I left. Sadly, I saw quite a lot with damaged wings, although most of them happily fluttered around – reminded me of the key bird in Harry Potter.

This one sat patiently on the railing as I took a few photos – I love how the sun is coming through its wings. When you get close to butterflies you see that their bodies aren’t that cute – in fact, they’re a little ugly – but their wings are beautiful (even the brown ones!).

This little one had pretty badly damaged wings, but I loved the orange against the back and white. I wonder if it hurt it when the wings were ripped. It almost looks like someone took a large bite out of the left one – I wonder how it happened?

This one slowly wandered down the side of the railing as I took photos, cheeky thing.

These two weren’t on top of each other, they both had a leaf to themselves, but I loved the contrast between the bright, clear colours of the top one compared to the duller ones of the bottom one. I didn’t realise there were so many different types of butterflies! I walked through the butterfly house very slowly, paranoid I would stand on one.

See the blur of bright blue? It was amazingly blue – brilliant and gorgeous, and I tried desperately to get a photo, but it refused to land. There were a few of them, all flitting around at the top of the house. I stayed in there for a while, following them with my camera – I didn’t even notice Phill had gone outside and was waiting for me! I never got that photo, the best I got was mid-flight.

It was a really great day at the zoo, seeing the different animals. I didn’t realise it was so big! Hopefully one day we’ll go back to Melbourne and visit the zoo again, since we were only there for half a day and didn’t get to see all the animals.