Monday, May 14, 2007

Best Southern Hemisphere Adventure, Day 3

Friday. It was time to get serious. The weather was right and I headed for the zoo. via ferry. I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture of the ferry.


On our way out into the harbor all these kids were yelling "The ferry! The ferry!" and waving at us. Some kids are easily excited.


Proper Sydney landmarks.




Proper Sydney tourist.


12 minutes later we had arrived at the ferry terminal for the zoo


And stood in this line


And got in these


And rode up over the zoo


From up there I spied elephants bathing. It put a smile on my face.


And there I was, at the zoo!


Let me lay the zoo map on you for your own reference.


The Taronga zoo doesn't mess around, right when you get there, there's the koalas.




Once I had had my fill of those lazy furry grandpas I came across these monsters.



And then I went to the place where the kangaroos are just chillin and running around.



This one was particularly friendly.



More of the kangaroos' co-habitants.



Enchiladas!



They said this was like the Australian otter. Looked more like a miserable wet rat to me.




This is the zoo's famous flower clock. It operates on a weight-pully system. I read that on a sign.


Smelliest animals at the zoo: the sea-lions. The sight of their keepers threw them into fits of fish-expectancy.


These penguins are called little penguins, or was it small penguins?


Friends!


Family!


I headed for Asia.




Elephants! (if you didn't know)



Up there is the animal they described as a bear crossed with a cat, I believe it was called a "Bearcat."




These bears looked worn-out. Australia is too far from Alaska.



Condors? Awesome!



Mom, where's the picture of me in front of one of these in LA?



This sounds like a terrible science experiment to me.




Second worst smelling animals of the zoo? The meerkats, who spend their day watching the helicopters over the bay. They must be concerned about their preditor potential.



Red pandas. I'm a major fan.




At the monkey habitat there was some serious monkeying around/monkey business going on.









Headed over to the reptiles, saw my second komodo dragon.


I went into the reptile house the same time as a huge group of real young kids. It was awful in there!




This is the Fierce Snake, the world's deadliest land snake.


And this is a death adder, which I always imagined would be bigger.



More koalas?! Listen. Koalas are overrated. They just sit in their food all day and sleep. Later I'll show you an animal that I much prefer to the koala.



A real live Tasmanian devil. It looks a lot tougher in the cartoons.



A dingo! It wouldn't keep still.



Now this is the Australian animal I wish was super famous, the Tree Kangaroo. It's a kangaroo that lives in trees. It is much more active and colorful than a stinking koala.




I think the whole zoo fears of the day they must use this.


I saw some bats and then that was pretty much it with my zoo visit.


Another ferry ride, another passing by the same old landmarks.




I decided to take a closer look at that famous opera house. It's true what they say, it's distinctive looking.








PS Hey, remember when I went to the zoo in Japan?

7 comments:

Cindy Bean said...

Wow! Those condors looked cool. Were their wings splayed like that for a reason?

Side of Jeffrey said...

zoos are awesome.

Scrumpestuous D said...

The Red Panda is also known as the Firefox, mascot of the popular web browser. I rock at Trivial Pursuit.

bex said...

nice try, brigham - if you are trying to trump my post about my trip to australia, you should have gotten one of those kangaroos to kiss you.

Anonymous said...

I'm from sydney and have been following your blog for over a year. I enjoy reading it. It's pretty cool you're in my city!

Brigham said...

Cindy-Apparently that's what condors do, stand around with their wings all the way open, showing off and stuff.

Maria Petrova said...

just lovely, brigham. and please tell jeff his profile looks like nicole kidman's.