Chapter 5
Penny had waited weeks for Sarah to ask her to Hobart, and the invitation had finally come. On the way into town they stopped at the old zoo site.
‘I never did like it here,’ said Penny.
Sarah gazed about and nodded. ‘It’s certainly not what I imagined.’
They stood beside a busy road, in front of a tall pair of padlocked gates on the edge of Hobart’s Queens Domain parklands. Not the original gates – they were long gone. White letters, set in a high steel frame, spelt out Beaumaris Zoo across a blue-tiled background bordered in red.
Once upon a time this quiet place shook to the roar of lions, the screech of monkeys and the coughing barks of Tasmanian tigers. Once there were turnstiles and ticket collectors and Sunday families. Now, forlorn animal sculptures of beaten tin gua
