Katie and Seán told us that the next animals we were going to go and see were the giraffes. That made me feel much better because I super love giraffes. They are so tall and their necks are so long and one time, I saw a video on the internet of a giraffe who could pick its nose with its own tongue. How cool and gross is that!

At the Giraffe House, Katie introduced us to the giraffes, who all had cool Irish names like Róisín, Nollaig and Bláithín, and then we got to meet the newest most ADORABLE baby giraffe who was only five weeks old. He was so cute and wobbly-legged that we were all Ooohing and Awwing and trying to get him to come closer to us so that we could say, ‘Look he likes me best,’ and ‘No, no, he likes me better.’

Then Seán the ranger got us to gather around and told us some totally brilliant facts about giraffes like:

* They are the tallest mammals in the world (which was actually the answer to question six on the quiz, so I quickly had to cross out what I had originally written and write down ‘giraffe’ instead).

6. What is the tallest mammal in the world? King Kong. Giraffe.

* Baby giraffes can stand up half an hour after they are born (which is like a superpower because it takes most human babies a year).

* No two giraffes have the same pattern (which Lucy O’ Leary said was kind of like snowflakes when you think about it).

* Then we learned the best fact ever, which is that giraffes have BLUE TONGUES … Blue! Their tongues can be as long as 45 centimetres (which is even longer than Big Bow Rebecca’s hair).

And

* Giraffes are super peaceful animals (although, because of what happened next, I think this might have been a lie).

Just before we left the Giraffe House, Múinteoir Emer decided she wanted to get a photograph with the giraffes standing behind us so we lined up in front of the enclosure. Katie and Seán stood on either side of us and Múinteoir Emer was in front with the camera, telling us to look straight at her and telling Ronan to stop making rabbit ears behind Oisín’s head.

Then, just as she said, ‘Say cheese,’ and we all shouted ‘CHEESE,’ I felt the hat on my head being tugged. At first, I thought it was Aidan, still trying to get me back for the ant-infested ice cream thing. So, I turned around to tell him to quit it, only to see the baby giraffe trying to take a Big BITE out of my straw hat, which it was holding onto with its GINORMOUS long blue tongue.

Then I screamed, which caused the little giraffe to snatch the hat completely off my head, which caused Múinteoir Emer to shout,

which caused Seán the Park Ranger to try to grab the hat back off the baby giraffe, which caused the Mammy giraffe to start kicking WILDLY and lashing out with her long neck. Which finally resulted in all the other giraffes starting to RAMPAGE and Seán having to call for backup to stop the rioting giraffes, while Katie hurried us off to have lunch, leaving the giraffes chewing Múinteoir Emer’s straw hat into little pieces.

Now I no longer had a sun hat to protect my sunburnt nose (which I was secretly kind of happy about), and neither did Múinteoir Emer (which she definitely wasn’t happy about). Then Laura reminded me that my sunburnt nose was probably the least of my worries because it was only lunchtime and I had already been in trouble twice, which I told her was true, but the hat-eating giraffe was totally not my fault and, looking on the bright side, things couldn’t really get any worse!

Sadly, I was wrong about that.