“Today is going to be an awesome day,” I thought as I rolled out of bed anticipating our trip to the Taronga Zoo. We boarded the bus like normal and headed towards Circular Quay (pronounced key) to catch a ferry to Taronga Zoo. The zoo was just a short ride across the harbor and when we got there I was so excited I could hardly contain myself. It reminded me of getting to go to the Knoxville Zoo when I was in elementary school. I still remember seeing the giant tortoises that they had in Knoxville and taking a picture on top of the bronzed one. The other thing I remember most about the Knoxville Zoo was that there were kids everywhere (I was one of them). Taronga was no different with small children accompanied by their parents all over the place.
The first exhibit that we checked out was a koala exhibit. I was particularly excited about this one because I have never seen one of these furry little creatures before. I was expecting to see them climbing all over the place or at least gnawing on some eucalyptus leaves. I was less than thrilled when I saw that every single one of the koalas was passed out in a tree. I guess it was still early in the day, but come on I wanted to see some action. This sleeping animal theme carried on throughout the day. Some other notable sleeping creatures included a huge Kodiak bear that was sprawled out under a rock with his arms and legs sticking out in all directions. Needless to say, he looked pretty comfortable.
From the koalas we went to see the reptiles. This was the biggest reptile exhibit that I have ever seen. There were komodo dragons, freshwater crocodiles, all kinds of frogs and lizards, and a ton of really huge snakes included this roughly 15-foot anaconda. Samuel L. Jackson would have freaked out.
As the day progressed we had the privilege of seeing tons of really amazing animals. I was most intrigued with the ones that were native of Australia and its surrounding areas. There was a really cool Tasmanian devil exhibit where one of the zoo workers was giving a presentation. We learned that the Tasmanian devil is actually on the endangered species list, and that if it does go extinct the Taronga Zoo has over 500 devils that could be released into the wild to help build back the population. I was also pumped about seeing the kangaroos and wallabies. These two were once again a little disappointing because they must have been tired too. They all just sat around in the shade and you know what, I don’t blame them because I would probably be doing the same thing.
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| Baby Tasmanian Devil |
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| Just some kangaroos chillin' in the shade |
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| Wallaby in the shade |
Once unique exhibit that the zoo had was a baby tiger exhibit. One of their resident 8-year-old females had given birth to some tiger cubs in August and we were fortunate enough to get to watch them play. It truly is a beautiful sight to see these extremely majestic creatures.
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| Momma Tiger |
Finally we took a gondola all the way over the top of the entire zoo back down to the ferry to head back in to town. Once back we were to have a meeting with the entire group to go over the details of traveling to Brisbane, and more importantly talk about our theses. We were each assigned one our professors that is traveling with us to help us with putting together out theses. Ultimately, this is the sole reason why we are here in Australia anyway and I was actually excited to start rounding up all of my ideas into a workable thesis. After Anoop and I talked I realized that I have a lot work to do before I can still really get started, but I feel much more comfortable about putting the whole thing together. (More info on my thesis to come in subsequent posts after I have done a little more research)
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| A view of the Sydney Harbor from the zoo |
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