January 12, 2008- Taronga Zoo

I don't know about you, but I haven't been to a zoo in years. It's not that I don't like them, it's that I never seem to fit them into my schedule. I've been wanting to go to the Detroit Zoo again for at least the past 2 years. In fact for the most part I like zoos- if they have enough space for the animals to live in, and suitable activities to keep them from being bored. Today we went to Taronga Zoo, which is on Sydney's harbor, and has excellent views of the harbor and the city. I highly recommend the zoo, because it has some great places where you can just walk into the kangaroo enclosures and see them up close. They aren't afraid of people at all, and I guess they don't bite. They really are as cute up close as they are on TV. :)

A pelican- one of the very first things you see once you go into the zoo.

One of the sleepy kangaroos in the kangaroo and wallaby enclosure. One of them got really close to me, but wouldn't let me pet it. :(

A kookaburra bird! This one was sitting quietly hoping someone would give it some food, not laughing histerically like I hear the ones outside our apartment here doing. :)

I've never seen a meerkat upclose like this before. The others were sleeping, but this one was keeping watch.

Such a cutie. :) This is actually a komodo dragon- if you ever watched the Nature Channel or Discovery Channel, you might have seen some footage of one of these guys running down a deer. They are really fast and can be deadly. But when you look at them up close they just look like a giant slow lizard.

One of the many tree frogs they have.

If you are a photographer who likes to photo animals, let me suggest several things on your next zoo trip. First off, go early in the morning- more animals are awake then because it isn't hot outside, and there are fewer people with screaming and unruly children there that early scaring the animals into hiding. Second, bring a tripod. It will really help you get close up shots of stuff that is in low light, like lizards and frogs. Third, bring some glass wipes, the kind that you use to clean a window with. People invariably touch the glass, which smudges it all up and makes it hard to photo through. If you ever make it to Sydney I highly recommend Taronga- you can get really close to the animals, and get some good photos that way.

A chamelion! Very cool to see up close.

And of course, a koala. Here they say koala, not koala bear. We all know it's not a bear, but somehow we started calling them koala bears anyway. :)

She happened to look over right at me as I took this. They have such beautiful fur- it was awesome to see them so close.

Us on the cable car.

The zoo has this Sky Safari thing, which is basically a mini cable car system to take you from the top of the park down to the ferry landing. We rode it down and back, and it's cool because you can see down into the enclosures of the animals, especially the elephants. It's free, but they ask for a $1 donation. It's not very high up either. I rode on the longest cable car in the world in Merida, Venezuela, and let me tell you that it was scary being up so high. But this was very nice. In fact, you can park at the zoo, see the zoo, and take the ferry over to Sydney and have dinner or whatever, then take the ferry back and walk around to your car. That's an awful lot of walking though.

I have a short video of us petting one of the elephants but I can't get that up here. We happened to be there right at elephant feeding time, which isn't as well advertised as the gorillas and koalas and other animals' feeding times, but it much more fun because you can actually get right up close and pet them while they eat. Their skin is so rough, like plastic almost. They have very beautiful eyes I think, very smart and friendly and peaceful looking.

After our long day at the zoo we were pretty wiped so we came back to our apartment and crashed. Fortunately we didn't get sunburned, despite the 6 hours in the sun, because we've been zealous about wearing sunscreen and hats.

If you haven't been to a zoo recently, I hope you'll consider going sometime soon. :)