Australia 2012
Day 5: Taronga Zoo
On our fifth morning, we caught an early public ferry from Circular Quay across Sydney Harbor to the Taronga Zoo. Since we hadn't time to get out into the bush, this seemed the best way to see all the weird and iconic wildlife of Australia. The zoo is situated on a steep hillside, which made for a lovely setting, with occasional harbor views of Sydney but often a sense of being all alone with the animals.
The first thing we did was take the cable car all the way to the high point, so we could see the lay of the land and do most of our walking downhill. There was a nice koala enclosure with a walkway spiraling up around the trees, but that didn't change the fact that they spend most of their day wedged among branches sleeping. We learned later that this is because the eucalyptus leaves are so nutritionally poor that it takes a lot of effort to digest them. Even curled up in furry balls, though, they were very cute.
The Tasmanian devils were in an enclosure with just waist-high fencing (guess they're not climbers), so you could get very close. Their food was put into a fake kangaroo carcass, just as they'd find on roadways. They did not disappoint — living up to their reputation for always being angry and mixing it up a bit for the crowd.
Click on any photo thumbnail to see a larger version.
