Week of May 11 - [More] Catching Up From Vacation - Our Trip Part 6 - Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My!

One of our big day trip outings wild in Hefei was a visit to the Hefei Wildlife Park. Think in terms of a large modern design zoo, rather then a Wild Animal Park. Though you do get to actually walk among some of the more benign animals. Emily had an absolute blast and we were amazed at the distances and period of time she can walk from this outing. The park is very spread out in design (which is a good thing for the animals) and there aren't any bus rides to take you around the circuit. You hoof it or you don't get to see it.

There is no way to share the experience we had with just a handful of photos. Sometimes people ask me why I don't insert slide shows or video in my blog posts. The reason is because Emily will in the future be reading a PDF book of all these many blog posts about her life and adventures. So I need to be sure I post in a manner that easily support PDF export of the blog posts. So hold on as this is going to be one long photo series that takes us from entry of the park and then all the way through the park. So I'll emphasize photos, and keep the comments short. :-P Note: you may have to click on some of the photos to see an enlarged view in order to get a good look at the details.

And before I begin the photo fest, let me say in advance, lions, bear, and wolves are not in the photo set (apparently they chose to be aloof way off inside their green belts this day) but we did see the tigers and have photos to prove it :)

Emily and Nancy approaching the park entrance:

The park entrance:

The ever popular Mother/Daughter love fest :) :

The white bird of paradise shows off for us:

More Birds of Paradise, and yes you can walk right up to them:

Needless to say, the deer are mean for petting at this zoo:

Emily attracted attention everywhere she went in the park. Here we are crossing the first zone bridge in the park:

More walking, heading in the general direction of the elephant exhibit:

Park zones are separated by barrier gates that keep the friendly petable animals in their own zones. You slide the spring loaded pedestrian gate to one side and step through:

The elephant is snacking on some heads of lettuce and hay. Emil got really excited about seeing the elephant:

A view of the larger elephant pen, very similar to the modern western pens in our zoos:

Emu anyone?:

The camels at this zoo all are Bactrian two hump camels from the central Asian highlands:

Our little explorer on the move:

A long shot photo of one of the many walkways through a very well landscaped park:

The HUGE bird enclosure exhibit:

Emily and Nancy inside the bird exhibit enclosure:

Must click on the photo to read the signs:

Emily gets the hang of the bird barrier gates at the other side of the bird exhibit:

Part of the lush and well designed landscape at the park includes many Chinese rock carvings:

Another long view:

The snow monkey exhibit, without any snow of course :) :

Closer up:

These monkeys love water of course, and the exhibit is designed with that in mind:

The bonobos, they are a bit shy and snuggling at the moment:

Remember, always keep away from the grassland...LOL:
Some More signage:

Click on the photo so get a better look at the lessor red panda napping:

Well, unfortunately, the Great panda is taking a nap nap, and since his outer enclosure was being worked on by staff, we did not get to see a free roaming great panda today :( :

The staff working on the panda enclosure glass panels, while Emily observes and supervises:

One last shot of the panda's outside enclosure:

Emily posing next to a rock landscape:

Always adventurous, Emily wants to take the rugged pathway (a stone walk way, literally) up to a walking bridge:

Emily did really well on the very wobbly chain and plank walking bridge. Nancy on the other hand was scared and whiny (LOL...I'm surely going to be in some form of pain once she reads this comment) :
Long photo from the sky walk down into the tiger green belt:

Two tigers doing what tigers do in the day time, sleep sleep sleep:

Two more tigers napping in the shadow of the sky walk:

A long view of the sky walk that literally allows you to walk over the carnivore and large animal green belt enclosures. Pretty impressive:

Another long view of the sky walk:

As I said, no photos of the elusive lions, and bears, and wolves, but according to this sign there are wolves somewhere down below:

And, there are bears over in those rocks somewhere, probably doing what the tigers were doing:

More rock landscape:

And some more rock landscape, this time nestled into a bamboo garden:

And that gives you a pretty good photo essay of the Hefei Wildlife Park.

[Stay tuned for more vacation adventures coming soon]