At the risk of being really boring, we opted for Sydney Zoo today. We were moving hotel, having not been able to manage to book 4 nights in the same place. So we checked out just after 10, and left our baggage for collection later. They seemed quite keen we collect it before 6, so we needed to do something that wouldn't bring us back too late. We had thought about going up to Paramatta and seeing all the historic houses, but it's an hour on the ferry, which only runs once an hour, so we were worried that might take too long. And I was keen to see an echidna and a platypus, both of which they have in Sydney Zoo. So we caught the ferry across the harbour again, just in the other direction this time, we didn't go under the harbour bridge.
Once at the other side of the bay, we caught the free zoo bus up the hill to the main gate. The Zoo is on a very steep hillside, with the main gate at the top. If you have already bought your ticket along with your ferry ticket, you can go in at the bottom gate and take the cable car to the top. But the ferry only sells full price tickets, and we were entitled to concessions. So we joined a giant queue and eventually bought our tickets and were in. The views of Sydney Harbour from near the top of the hill were wonderful; it was a good clear sunny day, the sky was unclouded, the water was a beautiful blue, with the backdrop of the city and the harbour was full of boats of all sorts. Before we even saw one animal, we just drank in the view.
We started with Australian animals. There were walk through aviaries, which we enjoyed, though the photographs aren't much good - mostly they fly too fast for you to photograph.
We went to an animal encounter place where they had an echidna, and we watched him for quite a while snuffling about looking for insects in the dead leaves. We were surprised by the way he moved, his body seemed quite stiff so he seemed to waddle rather than walk.
We also had another session in the Nocturnal House, where you stumble about in the dark peering at busy little hoppity things which can see clearly in the dim light and are going about their business in their enclosures quite oblivious of the huge clumsy creatures stumbling about outside tripping over things and banging into one another. One of the hoppity things was called a hopping spinifex mouse, which was not only utterly charming, darting about at great speed and poking its little sharp nose into everything, it was also the mouse I saw when we were waiting for sunset at Uluru, and everybody else said 'oh, it's just a mouse'. But apparently it's quite rare.
We also saw quite a few gliders, which are like squirrels but have flaps of skin they used to glide about. Some are quite tiny, as small as a harvest mouse, and they move so quickly they are quite hard to follow. Anyway, no photos are allowed, as it disturbs the animals.
Next, we went in to see the platypus which was in a tank with glass sides, and it was swimming about in the water hunting for insects and larvae, quite oblivious of the people standing in the dark looking into its tank. We watched it for a long time. Paul was surprised it was so small, only about 10 inches long, but it swam very fast. The same darkened area also had a wombat, but he was fast asleep.
We saw other animals we haven't seen before, like this tree kangaroo
and a little rock wallaby
not to mention the world's largest pigeon, which is slightly larger than a very big chicken. He paraded about showing his crest and was obviously anxious to have his photograph taken, but his aviary had very thick mesh and the pictures aren't very good.
We saw a pair of echidnas who had something to eat stored in various holes in a rock in their enclosure, so they jostled each other to get at whatever it was.
We also visited the platypus pools, where we were able to look down on a large platypus who was hunting his supper. I gave up trying to photograph him, he was so fast and my camera lens just couldn't see past the reflections on the water.
We admired the elephant and a huge crocodile, and spent some time watching the gorillas. There were some young ones play-fighting, and the smaller one got hurt, so he ran to his mum who gave him a quick cuddle. A crowd of about 50 people all went 'Aaaah!' Then the bigger of the play-fighters saw a big frilled dragon, a sort of lizard-like black and yellow thing with a big ruff, which had somehow got into the gorilla enclosure, and immediately gave chase. The dragon ran very fast, so the little gorilla failed to catch it, and the crowd all laughed.
We admired the pelicans, which are enormous, about the size of a five year old child,
and went to see the seals and penguins. There were only 2 penguins - apparently the others are nesting.
The otters were hard to photograph, as they were playing and wrestling. But the star of the show was in the shop on the way out. One wall of the shop is glass, and looks into the seal's enclosure. There were a line of people standing watching the seal, and he was equally fascinated by them - if he'd only had a camera with him, he'd have been filming us as we filmed him!
We had a fabulous view of the Opera House on the way back on the ferry,
then we retrieved our baggage and changed hotel. Then it was time for laundry, which we haven't managed to find time to do for a week!
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