July 26, 2007

The last day in Sydney... so we decided to do something that would keep us occupied all day - the zoo! We took the ferry over to Taranga Zoo, which was a nice ride through the Sydney harbor in the opposite direction that we have been going in. When you get off the ferry you get to jump on the sky-car that takes you up the hill, over the zoo, and drops you off at the top of the hill. It was neat! This zoo is supposed to have one of the best views of any zoo - and it does! It overlooks the Sydney harbor including the Opera House and the Bridge. We spent the whole day walking around the zoo - it's huge! And very well designed so that you can wander through the zoo without running into the same thing twice. We saw birds and Australian animals, Asian animals, and African animals. There were lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) and giraffes and elephants and all sorts of other animals. One of the giraffes was blind, though the zookeeper said he did just fine since he knew the enclosure pretty well. We also saw a couple of the shows that the zookeepers put on. One was a seal and sea lion show. It was very well done, with very subtle signals for the animals so that it really looked like they knew what the trainers were saying. They would do things like start talking about the anatomy of the flippers and the sea lion would raise its flipper and wave at the audience. They were also big on making sure that they ended with a "what can you do to help these animals in the wild" speech. The other show we saw was a "freeflight" bird show. This included doves, hawks, a couple eagles, cockatoos and owls. They flew low over the audience while someone talked about them, and a couple were trained to do things like pick up a coin from someone in the audience or land on an audience member's outstretched hand. This was done in an outdoor auditorium that opened out over the harbor for a spectacular backdrop. The whole day was a lot of fun! Tonight: packing.