Category Archives: Australia

Sydney and the Taronga Park Zoo

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We could get close but not touch.

We could get close but not touch.

Kookaburra in a tree

Kookaburra in a tree

Anzac bridge in Sydney

Anzac bridge in Sydney

Tassie, I got to feed him Tasmanian devil pellets!Tassie, I got to feed him Tasmanian devil pellets!

Famous Sydney opera houseFamous Sydney opera house

Dead mouse dinner for owl, yummyDead mouse dinner for owl, yummy

I didn't know they were this big!I didn’t know they were this big!

Today we finally got off the cruise ship after 14 days and disembarked in Sydney.   Sydney has about the same population as Melbourne but seemed much busier – perhaps it was because we were downtown and it looked like there was some sort of streetfair going on.

Our main activity today was to visit the Taronga Park Zoo (called the zoo with a view) where we saw a bird show which the volunteers in the zoo told us to see because it was “absolutely brilliant.”   It certainly was very nice and we were astounded to see black cockatoos with flashes of red in their tails.     We also saw several white ones sitting in trees around the zoo as well as quite a few kookaburras.

But the highlight of the day was our private tour (only 8 people, all of who were Americans) of the Australian part of the zoo where we truly went behind the glass and got to feed the animals and birds while the rest of the zoo’s visitors watched us do it.  Carol got to feed a Tassie devil and Jeff got to feed a ring tailed possum, which crawled all over him while she occasionally ate from a bowl of fruit that he held.  We also had a chance to take a whole lot of pictures with koalas and saw a platypus, another wombat, a rufous owl (who seemed to be very surprised to see us but enjoyed the dead mouse we brought him),  an echinda, a bilby, and a whole lot of other animals which seemed truly out of this world.  As we really like to see any kind of animal on our travels, this made for a truly excellent day.

We will likely not do a post tomorrow because we will fly all night from Australia to Honolulu and, because we will be crossing the International Date Line from west to east, we will arrive in Hawaii about 12 hours earlier than the time we left Australia.

Kangaroos, Koalas, and Good Friends

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Kangaroo in the wild

Kangaroo in the wild

 

Can you spot the kangaroos?

Can you spot the kangaroos?

Part of Melbourne.

Part of Melbourne.

The bldg we went to 88th floor and stood on glass floor.The bldg we went to 88th floor and stood on glass floor.

Better wombat picture than previous postingBetter wombat picture than previous posting

What a wonderful day!

In the morning we headed out to the You Yang Range to see kangaroos and koalas in the wild – and it was unbelievable.    The koalas, which are very picky about what trees they will eat from, had a whole eucalyptus forest to chose from but will only eat selected leaves on selected (6 species out of 200 species of what the Australians call gum trees) trees so they were really hard to spot.  Luckily our guide was in touch with some researchers in the park who had already spotted some so we got to see two.  They look very cute and cuddly, but they sleep a lot and move even less.

The kangaroos were a whole different story.    Our guide suspected that they would be hiding in some small trees on the edge of a large open grassfield (which they call a paddock) and once we got into the trees they seemed to be everywhere.  We kind of lost count as to how many we saw, but it was at least 7 and likely more.  Although these were definitely wild animals, they let us get within about 30 feet before they bounded off.  Two of them had joeys ( the name for any marsupial baby) although one was out of the pouch and still nursing his mother.   The guide said they don’t leave the mother until they are at least a year old, but this one looked like he really needed to be on his own.   As an extra added bonus we also saw three white cockatiels with yellow crest in the wild.

When we arrived back at the ship we met our friends Nikki and Gerry, who live in Melbourne, for a very pleasant afternoon of lunch and sightseeing.   We went up in the Eureka 88 building and went out on a ledge 88 stories above the ground and looked down through a glass floor on buildings and traffic below.   We had about 3 hours together but it went much too fast and we hope to see them soon in the US to show them the Pacific Northwest – to include Mr. Buffalo.   Melbourne is a truly beautiful city.

Tomorrow is our last full day on the ship but we will have a couple of days in Sydney before heading home.  Because that last full day on the ship will be at sea, we will probably not do a post tomorrow as we expect it to be uneventful and we will be packing.   We’ll try again in Sydney and maybe in Hawaii.