A bit of a sleep in this morning then up and off to find a camera. Well buy a camera really. My last digital snap shot aged gracefully and died a few months ago. Jason & Vanessa were picking me up at 11am from the McDonald's under the freeway south of the casino. We were off to the Zoo for the morning and back in time for Jason to go to work and me to meet Kim, Oliver, Colin and Marnie for dinner.

Service industry in Melbourne appears to be dying the slow death it is everywhere else in Australia. The first camera shop I went into, the store person was little short of obnoxious and gave the impression I was wasting his time not wanting to spend a small fortune on a camera. So I let him show me a couple of cameras I had already decided not to buy and left. The second shop had a nice sales person but he lectured me on the evils of battery operated cameras and how they are killing the environment because of throwing away the batteries. Plus the cheapest camera he offered me was over $300, which is out of my price range. Finally at Ted's I got a nice sales person who showed me a Nikon which suited me perfectly. Off I then walked to the McDonalds car park on Clarendon street behind the Casino to meet Jason & Vanessa for the trip to Werribee Open Range Zoo.

Sitting around in the shade in the McDonalds car park waiting for Jason & Vanessa gave me a chance to peruse the instructions for my new camera. As a typical bloke I went for the 'quick set up' as the entire manual looked too long and did not have enough pictures. Jason & Vanessa arrived on time and after stocking up with water as it was heading towards 32 degrees we headed off over the West gate Bridge to the Geelong road and Weribee. About 40 mins and we arrived at the Open Range Zoo.

Jason's uncle met us there. Rohan and his partner were doing the tourist thing with a multi place pass. We got through the gate in time to board the 12:30pm Safari Bus around the bigger open areas where the larger animals live. There were American Bison, Russian Horses, African Gazelles, Giraffe, Hippos and Rhinos, along with Zebras and African Wild Dogs. The driver and guide was so incredibly patronizing and catering entirely to the few children on board. The vast majority of the passengers were adults as it was a week day and not school holidays. The animals were great, the commentary was more excruciating than pulling teeth with rusty pliers.

Relieved to be away from the bus, we briefly stopped for the Meerkat talk which was better by far. After the Meerkats we walked to the Lions and had another talk which would have been good except the lions decided not to co-operate and so the poor keeper had little to talk about. Along past a few other animals and got some great close ups of the cheetahs. It was really quiet overall and the zoo had the feeling of a place winding down for good. There was no pace or activity with many of the shops closed.

A quick drive back to the city and dropped of by Jason & Vanessa before walking back to my motel to get ready for dinner with Kim, Colin, Oliver and Marnie. I have not seen them for years and was thoroughly looking forward to meeting Oliver as he ventured into his 2nd week of life and first time out on the town in Melbourne city. We went to a great Chinese dumpling restaurant in China Town off Swanson Street. It was dingy and plastic plates, bad service but fantastically yummy dumplings and extraordinarily cheap at less than $40 for 4 people. After dinner we all wondered down to Federation Square and along the river and back to work down the dumplings. I took some photos of the art and each other. I left Kim and Clan to return to my hotel with the intention of catching up for lunch on Thursday before my flight back to Canberra.