April 13, Taronga: Another Day in the Zoo!

randolf50
Apr 13, 2023
5 min read

Today was another marvelous day! We started the day quite leisurely, allowing me to sleep in. Our primary agenda item today was to visit the Taronga Zoo, Sydney’s famous zoo. Patrise often watches “Secrets of the Zoo” shows, including the one for the Taronga Zoo. This was one of the few things on our trip that was a specific desire of hers to see. I am a zoo person, as well as an eco-tourist, so I will go to a zoo at the drop of the hat.

The zoo was WONDERFUL! Kangaroos, wallabies, camels, elephants, emus, Tasmanian devils, Sumatran tigers, fur seals, California sea lions, Australian sea lions, birds, birds, birds, and much more. One of the most amazing portions of the experience is walking through some areas that have minimal barriers between the humans the animals. It gave us a more natural feel to being “among” some of the animals, rather than watching them being displayed. Obviously this wasn’t tre for all or even most of the animals. However, there were enough spaces and places like this, so as to the visit a distinctly different experience than any other zoo we have visited.

Since pictures are worth more than words, I will now proceed to ply you with many photos taken from our visit today to the Taronga Zoo. BTW, we had to take a ferry across Sydney Harbor and a bus ride to get to the zoo. And there are several spots in the zoo that look back at the harbor. There is no such thing as a bad view of the Sydney Harbor; it is in a phrase, singularly beautiful – and I have seen many harbor cities.

After returning from the zoo, and after getting some ice cream (at Gelatissimo), Patrise and I split up at the terminal. She walked to the hotel; I took a cab to the Town Hall Square Mall, to pick up an important medical item I had ordered yesterday. I had to take a taxi to get here. Once there, I quickly picked up the item I had ordered, and returned to the same taxi, who had offered to wait for me.

Patrise had a massage, while I puttered around in the hotel room for an hour. Then we dressed up a bit and went to an early dinner at Mr. Wong – a restaurant that, as one food and restaurant historian writes, redefined the Sydney Central Business District. This restaurant is so in demand that based on the advice of a few folks – beginning with Doug Ward, whom we met on the initial flight over from Los Angeles – insisted that we go and strongly urged us to make reservations over a week in advance. (We arrived in Sydney on March 29, before flying to New Zealand the next day. We made the reservation for Mr. Wong that very evening for an April 13 appointment. And even that early, we had to reserve a 5:30 time slot, to ensure we could get in for the evening. The other thing is that the restaurant requires a $100/person reservation fee when you make an appointment with them.

It was so worth the advanced reservation and the price. Multiple dozens of people were lined up at 5:30, waiting for the restaurant to open. Within thirty minutes of opening, it was full – both wings and both floors. As Patrise said, Mr. Wong is a night club, masquerading as a restaurant. It is clearly on the forefront of cuisine in Sydney, and that’s really saying something.

So now that I have talked your head off about the zoo and Mr. Wong (no apostrophe “s”), let me close by just sharing dozens and dozens of pictures of our day.

Ciao!

And now the TARONGA ZOO!!

(Zoo entry)

(Wallaby near the front entrance of the zoo)

(Koala #1...they sleep over 80% of the day. They are the only mammal that eats the poisonous Eucalyptus leaves, which provide very little nutrition.)

(Koala #2...because of their diet, they move slowly and often not at all. Can't afford to use their precious energy on anything except the essentials of eating.)

(Koala #3. are known to be territorial about a particular Eucalyptus tree, even when it runs out of leaves, they may refuse to leave.)

(Dingos sunning themselves. Dingos are the wild dogs of Australia and they are very endangered.)

(Dingo #1)

(Dingo #2)

(Description of a duck-billed platypus)

(A live platypus hiding under a shelter)

(A live Tasmanian devil. It repeatedly ran from me trying to photograph it, as though I am a member of the papparazzi.)

(Tasmanian devils are small, but extremely tough. Their numbers have been decimated in recent years by a type of facial cancer that they spread to each other when they bite. They often bite each other over food [typically carcasses of other animals] or when mating [some of the roughest mating in the animal kingdom.)

(Australian magpies are considered a nuisance at best and a pest at worst. In New Zealand, they will reportedly pluck out the eyeballs of newborn lams, if the ewes are not careful,. thereby leaving the lambs blind and essentially dead. The blind lambs can't find their mother's teats, in order to feed.)

(Perhaps a descendant of Violet? That is an inside joke for Doug's siblings.)

(Another descendant of Violet?)

(Red jungle fowls wander all over the grounds [and fences] of the zoo.)

(This bird is the white ibis. Their numbers are now estimated to be around 10,000 all around Sydney. There are now so many of them that they have been given the unflattering nicknames of "bin chicken", "tip turkey", and "dumpster diver.")

(Some unfamiliar breed of chickens in the zoo.)

(Mother and chick of some type of duck.)

(Emu, not a cassowary.)

Hey not all of the animals can be cute and cuddly!? These are burrowing cockroaches.)

(...and this is the bird-eating spider)

(Brown-nosed wombat)

New Zealand sea lion)

(California sea lion)

(California sea lion)

(Fur seal)

(Fur seal)

(Australian sea lion. Very endangered species and it does not reproduce rapidly.)

(Breeding pair)

(Asian elephant)

(Sign depicting the wingspan of an Andean condor [black] versus wingspans of other birds.)

(Testing my wingspan versus the Andean condor...gulp)

(A sun bear, found only in jungles of southeast asian and numbers in decline.)

(Sumatran tiger cubs. There are only 400 Sumatran tigers left in the world. Please do what you can to support them -- National Wildlife Federation or World Wildlife Fund are two ways.)

(Adult Sumatran tiger)

(The very rare Ferry fairies. Be on the lookout; they were last seen escaping the Taronga zoo. If you see them, report their whereabouts to authorities. Do not attempt to capture them!)

And now Mr. Wong...