Ethan's Sydney Holiday - Day 2 - Taronga Zoo

Wednesday 31st August

Today we started our day by moving to an apartment that didn't have a leaky kitchen. 
After we settled in, we got ready to go to Taronga Zoo.  We packed the bag and walked to Central Train Station, caught a train to Circular Quay where the Sydney Harbour Bridge is located.  We hopped on a ferry and crossed the harbour.  On the way, we saw the city, Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House.  We went passed the Naval Base at Woolloomooloo and saw warships. We landed on the Taronga Zoo wharf and caught a bus up to the gates of Taronga Zoo which is at the top of a hill. 

After buying tickets, we were given maps of the Zoo.  We decided to go and see the Australian animals first.  We walked through bird aviaries and saw Wombats sleeping in their burrow under ground. We saw koalas, kangaroos and emus.

We went and saw the Seal Show. There were four seals that were showing us some of their natural behaviours. They showed us lots of tricks. I really loved "Murphy" the seal that started the show by doing a Tarzan call. 

We made it just in time to see the Gorilla keeper talk about the Gorillas natural behaviours.  The gorilla keepers are not allowed to be in the enclosure with the gorillas because the big Silver Back Gorilla is the very large male leader that could easily hurt anybody that entered his territory.  The Silver Back got really cranky when the younger male tried to steal his food.  He chased him away.  We saw a mother gorilla carrying a little 8 month old baby. 

In the early afternoon we watched the Elephant "play session" with the keepers.  The older elephants played soccer with a huge soccer ball and the baby elephants tried to play too!!! The littlest baby tried to steal peanuts out of the keeper's pockets.  Other behaviours that are taught are pulling logs, catching logs, standing on two feet only, sitting down and lying down.  They are taught these things so that the elephants can be looked at by vets and kept stimulated and healthy.

One of  the best parts of the day was feeding the Giraffes.  We fed the giraffes carrots. They have a 40cm long blue tongue which is really really rough like sandpaper.  My brother Dane had the tongue wrapped around his arm until the giraffe realised that it wasn't a carrot!!!

I really loved seeing the lions up close.  The lioness was really close to the glass and stood super still so I took some really good photos of it. Up the back of the lion enclosure we saw a large male lion with a very wide mane. He was just sitting and sunbaking in the afternoon sun. We also saw the tigers searching for bits of meat that the keepers had hidden in the trees and bushes around its enclosure. It climbed to the top of the tree to grab a bit of meat from a little hole in the tree.

After all that walking up and down the Zoo, our legs were really tired so we decided to watch the Bird Show.  At the start they showed us Birds of Prey, Hawks and Falcons. During the show we saw a Brolga in the water looking for grasshoppers, a galah that took money from a man's hand in the audience and took it back to its keeper.  The keeper then sent the galah back to the man to give the coin back!  What a well trained bird!

The last thing we saw as we walked out of the zoo was a big huge tank window with a seal waving at us. We stopped and as we stared at her, she stared right back at us!!! We thought she was very special.  We had an awesome day!