Montreal Biodome

Not to be confused with the biosphere (that's for another outing), last weekend we went here.  I hope the link works.  It is another of Montreal's museums - they have over 30!  Easily accessed by the Metro, didn't loose anyone this time.  It was one of the stadiums that was built for the 1976 Olympics, got to love what they come up with for white elephants (Gold Coast/Queensland/Anna Bligh are you listening?  I am still pissed at you wasting my tax dollars).

After taking over half an hour to line up and get our tickets (yay we got locals prices!), the first section is a tropical rainforest's.  Rhys had not been keen on going until we walked in and then his inner Harry Butler came out.  There were macaws, just like in the movie Rio (you'd love it Aunty Kursty), capyburas (giant guinea pigs - that smell worse than pigs!), a yellow anaconda - you should have seen Rhys move past that one and he didn't like the bats either.  There was a two toed sloth who was actually moving pretty fast.  They are very ugly.  Even Piranhas, I did wonder about the safety of the other fish in the tank. 

Then it was into a Laurentian Forest.  We were really looking forward to seeing beavers.  They had a massive stick dam built on the display but no beavers, the bloody slugs were asleep.  A camera is set up in the burrow and all you could see as two fat beavers sleeping.  The most movement we saw was when one rolled over and scratched.  The otters didn't disappoint and were lots of fun.

The kids favourite part was the penguins and other sea birds.  They even had puffins, I had always wanted to see one after those puffin books you read as a kid.  Bella lay on the ground (yuck, my kids are all class) and talked penguin to them, actually she was talking to a puffin but she said it understood penguin.  We tried to get them to do the Happy Feet dance for us but they wouldn't embarrass themselves.  That's the kids and the penguins and I wasn't dancing alone.

There was a massive display of birds eggs, they have lots of really pretty ones (specked, blue - I still want one of those chooks that lay blue eggs, a la Martha Stewart) and even some real dinosaur eggs!

The only problem we encountered was I forgot to charge the camera, yep not one photo, much to Rhys disgust.  He wanted more photos for his animal collection.

At the end I remembered we had our phones and took this one of the kids in a giant penguin egg.  Every kid was lined up to have their picture taken in here and a few adults, who need to learn how to wait their turn! 

Anyway it was a pretty good day until a meltdown at the end!  No it was not me!