Generally speaking it was looking really really great the zoo when first started visiting, the African Savannah especially stood out amongst the exhibits and was brand new when first started visiting the zoo (and remember thinking the former Otter pool was a good exhibit too back then, and the Gibbon and Lemur islands). All the upgrading work throughout the 1980s (and a few things in the '70s) had already taken place so missed the archaic dated old enclosures like Tricia the Elephant's former tiny enclosure, the Otter moat and castle (maybe not the worst in those days, but a famous former exhibit) and the notorious Bear grottos etc.
The exception to everything looking really modern, well planted etc for the inhabitansts, was a row of cages next to eachother each about 30m wide one called 'Macaque Row' which had about three 50 sq m enclosures that housed Hamadryas Baboons, Tonkean Macaques and Sulawesi Crested Macaques (and Mandrills too before) that used to be the Big Cat enclosures and even had Striped Hyena in one of them at one point), next was 'Gibbon Row' which was about 6 or 7 enclosures ranging from about 32 sq m to 64 sq m that held most of the zoo's Gibbon species at the time: Silvery, White-Cheeked, White-Handed (Lar) and Hoolocks (some White-Handed Gibbons also lived on one of the lake islands so were the more fortunate of the Gibbons in that era aswell as the Siamang pair Ringo & Starr who lived in the older of the Gibbon aviaries still in use until late 1995 (can see those old rows on the 1993 aerial, the 'Gibbon Row' used to be the Orangutan and Chimpanzee row until 1981, the old Dome cage was attached to end of it, used to be Atjeh the Sumatran Orangutan's enclosure).
The old Japanese Macaque exhibit where the Oak Lawn is now before the Savannah entry was also dated and not a very attractive looking exhibit but was a lot bigger than the afforementioned Macaque, Gibbon and Baboon exhibits were (the Baboon's got their exhibit in the Savannah in 1996 and the Macaques moved to Lesser Primates complex, well not the Japanese Macaques, they went off display in 1999 and ended up at Gorge too in early 2000s).
Same with the old Penguin pool, and old Crocodie exhibits next to 'Gibbon Row' (Croc exhibits were where Rhino stables are now) they old but wasnt the smallest and this along with the Japanese Macaque exhibit and an exhibit for Himalayan Tahr were the next most dated looking exhibits at the zoo..but werent on the same level of old and way rundown looking as 'Macaque Row' and 'Gibbon Row' were.
They were the standout last remnants of the old outdated parts of the zoo..but mostly everything was modern and new looking. The Orangutan (and initially 2 Chimpanzees too) complex was a bit plain and basic looking but it was still only 10 years old as exhibits when first saw it (the upgrades from 2002 onwards for the Orangutans were so so much better).
*for first year of personally visiting the zoo Tricia was still on her own (but always saw her in a much better exhibit with a pool etc; but she was joined by little Permai, Teduh and Putra Mas in December '92 which was lovely (and very adorable) to see.
