By the grace of Bhagwan Swaminarayan & Guruhari Pramukh Swami Maharaj, BAPS Swaminarayan Centre, Melbourne held a Zoo visit for Bal/Balika Mandal on Saturday, 7 March 2009 at The Royal Melbourne Zoological Gardens, Melbourne. Total 16 Balaks and 16 Balikas along with 15 volunteers from various departments (i.e. transport, kitchen etc) attended the Melbourne zoo.

Registration started before one month and received great response from balak/balika & their parents. 34 balaks and balikas have been registered for this memorable zoo outing.  There was special car transportation was arranged by the volunteers to visit the Melbourne Zoo.

The objective of the outing was to build samp, suradbhav and ekta among them. Children were divided into six groups, 3 for Balaks and 3 for Balikas (i.e.Group A,B,C for Balaks and Group C,D,F for Balikas). Bal/Balika Sanchalaks and other volunteers of BAPS Melbourne reached there at 11:30 AM.  By 12:30 PM all balaks and balikas have arrived and registered over the visit place. Zoo visit started at 1:00 PM from the main gate of the zoo and given light breakfast to the balaks and balikas and then all went to the left side section of the zoo which includes the animals like Gorillas, Otters, Monkeys, Tigers, Elephants and Orang-utans.

Before starting another section children had breakfast. In another section, children has seen animals such as  giraffes followed by zebras, kangaroos, emus, koalas, grant tortoises and lions, children played a game i.e. “ know each other” In team of two children, they been ask to introduce each other so that they can know more about each other. All went to the final section in which children has seen animals like African wild dogs, big cats, bears, penguins and red pandas. At the end of zoo visit, everybody had Prasad and finished the outing at 5:15 PM.
This Zoo Outing resulted in each and every Bal/Balika finding themselves closer amongst their fellow Balaks/Balikas.