Day 42: Taronga Zoo

This morning, all of us grabbed a ferry ride across the harbor and headed to Taronga Zoo.  The zoo sits on a hill on the opposite shore of the harbor from the main city.  The animals there are said to have the best views in the world, for throughout the zoo, you can look out over the harbor and see both the Harbor Bridge and Opera House.  You can either enter from the bottom and hike up, or be smart and take the gondola to the top, hiking down from there.  We decided to be smart.

An Aboriginal man playing the didgeridoo at Circular Quay, near the ferries.

Quite the view from the zoo.

Gondola!

The zoo is laid out such that it winds its way down the hill, ensuring that you have to do as little backtracking up the hill as possible.  I found the zoo very neat, especially the reptiles and Australian animals.  The reptiles section had lots of snakes, particularly the deadly kind, but also several big, cool geckos and lizards.  They even had a Komodo Dragon, the largest species of lizard.  The Australian animals were very cool, of course, as I was in Australia, but hadn’t seen much more than Kangaroos.  They had koalas, which I found out are illegal to touch in New South Wales, so I won’t be holding one.  They did have an area where you could walk around with wallabies, and I did pet one of them.  A wallaby is basically a small version of a kangaroo.  There was an awesome nocturnal section, which was kept dark for the animals.  Of the entire zoo, the animals in there were the most active, constantly running around.  They had all sorts of little outback animals, like the bilby, which is basically a miniature wallaby, and another that was a miniature bilby.  We continued down the hill, passing big cats, chimps, and many other animals, finally finishing with sea lions and little penguins.

Even in the zoo, you can see across the harbor.

Giraffes with a view.

The peacock just walked around, he never did show his true colours, though,

Koala!

Greg and Madi petting a wallaby.

He looked at me, but wouldn't come.

Finally, I found one.

Madi says hello to a Lemur.

The tiger was quite active.

They actually had deer! How exotic!

I found just the stuffed animal for my mom.

This sea lion did lots of tricks.

As we left the zoo, there was one more “exhibit” just outside of gates, a giant spider, which had made its nest just above the sidewalk.  For some reason, the girls didn’t seem to like this one too much.  We headed back to the hotel, but I went out again, taking a ferry to Darling Harbor, since our ferry tickets were good all day.  Darling Harbor is a smaller harbor, just one harbor inland from the main Circular Quay.  It is filled with boats and lined with things to do and eat, but mostly eat.  I walked the perimeter, checking out the views, and scoping out a maritime museum that looks pretty interesting.  There was one building, which, from across the harbor, appeared to be a mall, that turned out to simply be full of restaurants.  That is how many restaurants there are over there.  I headed back to the hotel, now hungry from smelling all of the food.