Rather than sit in the dark for Earth Hour and bemoan how no one else cares for the planet, I think people should do something social. This year we had the opportunity to go to see live music and animals at the Melbourne Zoo for Earth Hour. We were invited to the event as part of a special blogger invite organized by Our Religion (a PR company attempting to use the 'new media').

The Melbourne Zoo is only a short walk through mostly parkland from our place, so it was really nice to go to an event so close, plus have a zero carbon footprint getting there! Although the zoo has good public transport options in general. We were greeted by Masha and co at the gate and got tickets and goodie bag before heading into the zoo in groups of ten. It seemed each blogger I met had brought along another non-blogger friend, lover or family members. Although Alana (my partner) does blog too and we have a joint blog together elsewhere.
First we go and check out the giraffes, which were busy munching on some branches. Off to the lions next, with me briefly getting distracted by the cute meerkats on the way. What struck me about the lion exhibit is that there was only males in the enclosure. I remember when we were living on a sheep station if you put only male sheep (rams) in a paddock they got pretty gay pretty quick from lack of ewe company. I found myself briefly wondering if the zoo's male lions had also gone this way?
Next we got a special behind the scenes tour of the reptile house. We were greeted by John (?) the head curator for the snakes and lizards: a man with a majestic silver beard, gypsy earring, twinkling eyes and Steve Irwin shorts. I wonder where 'animal men' shop for these sort of shorts? Or if as soon as you become an 'animal man' they issue them to you in the mail?
We were taken through the feed room, filled with cages of squirming insects and mice. For most people I expect this might have had slightly more novelty value than for Alana, as part of Alana's work as a medical scientist is with mice. Then we met the most amazingly beautiful lizards:
Fijian Crested Iguanas. Which are critically endangered in Fiji, so a population is being kept here in Australia.
Now I didn't wake up yesterday morning and think to myself 'Right today I'm going to handle snakes!' But that is exactly what happened next and I ended up with a
Honduran Milk snake and another sort of python (name escapes me at present) on me.

Very cool experience, not what I expected. Alana was a little freaked by them though when they started to react to the noise of the people in the room. She also took some cool shots of the sort of wounds people get from snake poisoning, which might come in useful for special makeup effects one day.

After embracing my inner 'animal man' we headed over to the BBQ area for a meal put on for the bloggers. They put on quite a spread for us, so I was feeling very wined and dined by the end of it! What was really great though was to meet some fellow Melburnian bloggers. We were on the table with the delightful A. from
What's For Tea. A foodie blogger who I will now be following. We had thought to bring some of our own food and had packed salad sandwiches and baklava. So Baklava for dessert!
Then on to the concert component for the evening. They had set up a special little flagged off area for the bloggers with 'Reserved blogger event' signs. This made me feel a little bit like one of the exhibits at the zoo! But on another level it was really nice to be treated as being a just a little bit important for a day. Although I'm well aware that this is part of the media strategy being adopted. I'm not sure where I stand with bloggers being co-opted for PR? Australia is also a bit behind this kind of strategy being used, which is far more common in the US and UK.
Tim Rogers was headlining the evening, but for us The Wagons were far more fun and slightly crazy. Sort of unhinged country-folk meets rock music. One slight dampener on the evening was that it started to rain just a little (apologies for the pun). I reckon a few bloggers with kids headed off a bit early because of this.

One slightly weird thing was that when we opened up our 'goodie bag' we discovered a block of
Nestle chocolate which contains palm oil and palm oil is responsible for destroying the habitat of orangutans! A little more research here might have been a good idea for the organizers of the event, especially considering the ads up at the zoo about palm oil. But perhaps this was all just part of a 'greenwash strategy' being used by Nestle? Was I now on the Nestle payroll being paid as a blogger with dark creamy chocolatey goodness? Who knows. Fun event. But need far more of these events to change the attitude of more punters.