Taronga Zoo


penguins-taronga-zoo

My parents came and visited over the summer holiday. (God, that is so weird to say. “Summer holiday” and “Christmas” do not go together).

One of the places that we went was Taronga Zoo. Unfortunately, we chose one of the hotter (and more humid) days to head over to the zoo. We took the fifteen minute ferry ride from Circular Quay and headed over to the zoo.

I will say again, it was hot. Zoos are pretty similar the world over (plus I went to the Buffalo zoo quite recently), and I went here because I wanted to see Australian wildlife…in Australia. We saw little penguins, kangaroos, various birds, koala bears sleeping,  wallabies, various monkeys and some other wildlife including Tasmanian devils (which are not actually devils but cute little bear like animals), platypi and echidna. Echindna are adorable. They are also, like platypi, mammals who lay eggs. Mammals who lay eggs.

I actually really liked the area where they had the kangaroos and wallabies because it was out in the open, the animals weren’t behind glass, and we were walking through their environment. It was slightly off-putting, walking through there with kangaroos that are actually surprisingly strong and could probably kill someone (and probably have), but in the end, pretty damn cool.

Australia has some odd yet adorable animals animals. (Meet Peggy…)

anzac-and-peggy

But back to the zoo. We also ate lunch at The View, where the food was okay. Nothing spectacular, but decent enough to fill my stomach. We ate tapas style, or at least my parents did. I got fish and chips.

After lunch, our tour of the zoo was pretty much over, as I was still feeling pretty craptastic and it was getting warm(er). So we went up to the gift shop (as always, exit through the gift shop) and made our way back down to the ferry via the Sky Safari, which was actually a quite cool airtram ride. My vocabulary is failing me for the more appropriate word, forgive me.

Long story, the zoo was hot, but quite interesting and worth the $150-ish dollars the tickets were. If you’re in Sydney, take a morning and go.


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