Wet Weekend

The book is earning the $26 I paid for it. It's Easter weekend and it's raining. Sydney is deserted; everyone has headed out of town up the coast or into the Blue Mountains.

We visited the Sydney Olympic Aquatic centre at Homebush today. It's seven years since the Sydney olympics, but this place still looks spanking new.

It cost $6.40 each to get in (free for Ella). That's a total of about a £5 for the whole family. The water park is fab; toddler splash pools, spas, fountains, showers, a slide and a river rapids ride. There are even family changing rooms - you lock yourselves in and have the exclusive use of three showers, two sinks, a toilet and a huge changing room. We were impressed.

Afterwards we went to Taronga. We've joined up as members so we just pay a reduced parking fee and after that it's all free. In all, the total day out cost the equivalent of about £7.50.

At the zoo we searched in vain (again) for the red panda. The map is really vague so it's not easy to find anything, but the red pandas have eluded us twice before. To make matters worse, they've had cubs (I saw it in the local paper), so not only are they eluding us, they are harbouring a pair of cute, fluffy-eared, pink-nosed babies. Last week I rang the zoo. "Look, I'm ringing about these red pandas. I know they've had babies and I want to know what's the best time of day to see them". The zoo told me to visit at the end of the day. "That's pretty much the time the mother comes out with the cubs".

The zoo closes at 5pm. It was half past four. We were within sniffing distance, then Darren found a lost child. He was called Tyson and was standing outside the giraffes, snivelling. We walked him back to the entrance and reunited him with his mother, one of those ladies who plucks their eyebrows out then draws them back on again. She had wonky red lipstick and seven earrings in each ear. Hey lady, watch your boy. I nearly saw those Pandas.