Tuesday, 7 April 2015

My Date With A Dinosaur!

Today I had a date with a dinosaur! Yep, I saw online that Bendigo Marketplace had hired a Baby T-Rex from the "Walking With Dinosaurs" fame to make some special guest appearances during school holidays for the children. 

I messaged the management to check if a 43-year old "child" would be permitted to have a photo taken with the dinosaur and they said yes. Although the competition was only for children under the age of 16, I could still meet "Fluffy" &have  my photo taken. Yes, "Fluffy" is the name of the Baby T-Rex!

Here are my photos:

These are the official photos taken by Bendigo Marketplace; however one of the staff members kindly took some using my iPhone:

Look at the smile on my face!!!
"who's a pwiddy dinosaur hey?" Fluffy enjoyed having his snout rubbed and he started to purr, then I gave him a tickle under the chin...


Well, you know how excited a dog or cat gets when you scratch them in that favourite spot of theirs? Fluffy was no different. He started to get a bit frisky & rubbed his head up against me (nearly knocking me off balance) and wiggled his tail excitedly. We all started to laugh! It must've been a nice break from all the kiddies poking him and screaming in fear.

I tried to get some full length photos of Fluffy without people's children in the photo, it wasn't easy to do as there was a big crowd and Fluffy was so large.

Seriously the "puppet" is so lifelike and yes there is a man inside the suit operating all of the animatronics. The suit is VERY heavy and very hot - the outer skin is a rubbery material - so the operator needed to take a break every 20-minutes. I had to wait in the queue for quite a while but I didn't mind. I made some new friends in the queue and helped to calm & encourage some timid kiddies. 

I cannot thank Bendigo Marketplace enough for allowing a Big Kid's dream to come true. I have always loved dinosaurs and to "meet" one up close was such a privilege! 

Fluffy is doing limited appearances until Wednesday 8 May 2015 between 1-4pm. Contact Bendigo Marketplace for further information.