Zoo photos

05-07-2008

so what's your actual itinerary for Singapore and Borneo at the moment?

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nod if you can read this

05-07-2008

@Jonathan: could you please post an itinerary for your upcoming trip, as there are many of us that are excited and jealous of your travels. Borneo and Singapore will undoubtedly be amazing!

As soon as I get back from my holiday I'll sift through the hundreds and hundreds of zoo photos and eventually post another 500 or so.

05-07-2008

Here's the itinery then:

On the 27th of July we leave Manchester Airport for singapore. When we arrive there is around a two hour interval before we get on a plane bound for Kota Kinabalu (Sabah, Malaysian Borneo).

We will spend two and a half days (Saturday (Half day) sunday and Monday) in Kota Kinabalu looking around (there is the national park and the zoo)

Then on the Tuesday we fly over to Sandakan. Here we will go to the Sepilok orang-utan sanctuary and end up, afterwards, at the Sukau rainforest lodge.

The next day will be spent in Sukau by the Kinabatangan river. There will be cruises by the river during the day, and also one at night!

After this we spend half a day on the river, visiting an oxbow lake and a regeneration programme. Then we will got to the Gomatong caves and look at the tree swifts. Following the caves, it's borneo rainforest lodge (Danum Valley!)

We spend a day exploring the forest surrounding the rainforest lodge, then we we go along a canopy walkway over he jungle.

The next day we look for birds and mammals in the morning and Fly bak to Kota kinabalu in the afternoon. There is not much time before we'll be on a plane bound for Singapore!

In singapore we don't have a definiate itinery, but it WILL include the Jurong bird park (two days), singapore zoo, night safari and sentosa underwater world. Then there may be one spare day before we're on the plane home.

The next day I'm off to Chester for the Junior member's Summer school!

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Jonathan Beilby-www.zooscene.co.uk

(Join the hornbill group-www.zoobeat.com/group.php?groupid=2)

05-07-2008

Watch out for that Sumatran rhino in the Danum valley Jono

05-07-2008

there is a big new aquarium opening in Kota Kinabalu. It was going to be August but now the website says "the end of 2008"

Welcome to AquaticaKK: Aquarium & Ocean Science Discovery Centre

on Sentosa in Singapore, the aquarium isn't that great, but there's an insect place there as well which is quite good (and a few little beachside "zoos" which you should avoid)

Most important tip of all for Borneo: you can recognise a rhino wallow by the horn gouges in the mud at the sides!!!

some extra swatting before you go: mammal watching in Borneo

check out the additional links at the bottom. And make sure you do a night drive in the Danum Valley -- good place for clouded leopards!!

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nod if you can read this

05-07-2008

Suggestion: On one of your two days at Jurong, instead of turning right into the Bird Park entrance, turn left and walk down to the far end of the car park. There you will find a grotty little reptile park which has an amazing walk through Green Iguana enclosure and often has baby Reticulated Pythons and other exotic [to us] reptiles on display. They also feature a crocodile "show" which was pretty scary when I last saw it. Worth a visit - if only as a contrast to the excellence of the Bird Park.

05-07-2008

not to be disrespectful to Steve, but my advice re the reptile park would be to AVOID!!! It started as a crocodile farm and added more reptiles later for the tourists. Its a disgusting place -- "grotty little reptile park" is a perfect description of it

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05-07-2008

We're only going to the aquarium for the Dugong, Hump backed dolphins and Sawfish!

We were not planning to go to the reptile park, and will not do so as there is not time.

__________________
Jonathan Beilby-www.zooscene.co.uk

(Join the hornbill group-www.zoobeat.com/group.php?groupid=2)

05-07-2008

Chlidonias, I was thinking of young Mr Hornbill's continuing captive animal education!

Where else could one see an Estuarine Crocodile minus all four legs as well as it's tail [from fights due to overcrowding] lying in a pool of liquid bacteria but still alive?

06-07-2008

the dolphins aren't actually in the aquarium itself, but in a separate dolphinarium. I only went once, in 2004, and then the ticket for the aquarium was also the ticket for the dolphin show and you had to catch one of Sentosa's free buses to the other location. I don't personally like dolphin shows and only went because the pamphlet showed the dolphins as being the bright bubblegum-pink individuals, which they weren't (they were grey!)

__________________
nod if you can read this

06-07-2008

isn't it amazing that in a country like Singapore with its fantastic bird park, zoo, etc, that there is also a cesspit like that reptile park?

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nod if you can read this

06-07-2008

That cesspit has thankfully been closed down. Some of the rarer species have been transferred to Singapore Zoo (like aldabra giant tortoises) or overseas zoos. The crocodiles were sadly sold to other croc farms in the region for a similar fate.

06-07-2008

The silly pamphlet (which is still used today btw) actually shows bottlenosed dolphins photoshopped pink!

06-07-2008

A little bad news, I heard that the single-wattled cassowary is no longer on display.

And all the new attractions at the Zoo (boat ride, new rainforest show, new kids zoo, new mixed habitat for proboscis monkey) will open successively after August.

06-07-2008

The number is now over the 8000 mark as of today so Snowleopard may yet get the bag of Jellybeans