Day 2: Taronga Zoo.

Still flushed with the previous day's success, I decided to spend day 2 at the Taronga Zoo, the main zoo in Sydney. Oh, and in case you're wondering why I couldn't just take a bus back to my hostel the night before, prepare yourselves for a tale of idiocy unrivaled in this modern world. It turns out that the bus that goes back and forth between the Rocks (Opera House Area) and my hostel at Glebe Point is the 431. In my minds, that night, I had inverted the numbers, and for some reason, had decided that the bus that I was looking for was the 341. So, during my exploration of night-time Sydney, every time that I saw a 431 pass me, I thought it was a different bus, going somewhere other than where I wanted it to go. I was totally convinced that night that I was looking for the 341, not the 431. I even noted to myself how close the numbers were, it was like they switched the numbers around to tell you what direction the bus was travelling or something. Yeah, genius = me.

Back to topic however, Taronga Zoo. I figured that since I was here, this was probably going to be the single best chance that I was going to ever have to see Australian animals. So, after asking around a bit, I found out that the only real way to get to the zoo was via a ferry that leaves every half-hour from circular quay (right next to the Opera House). So I took a bus to circular quay, noting all the places that I had walked past the night before, thinking that I was completely lost. Oh, and the city looks completely different in daylight. Go figure, eh?

Anyways, the ferry ride was awesome, and it afforded a wonderful view of Sydney harbor.

The view of the Zoo as I approached it from the harbor.

I finally arrived at the zoo, got some tickets to enter, and they had this tram that takes you over the entire zoo and gives you a bird's eye view of the zoo. I would just like to say that while the zoo may not be as immense or have as great a variety as, say, San Diego Zoo, it has some of the most amazing looking animals that I've ever seen. Truly, they grow 'em weird over here. Of course, I saw some of the stereotypical Aussie animals:

If you look closely you can see the little Joey inside of the Kangaroo's pouch. I was even lucky enough to see the little Joey actually climb (see: fall) out of his mother's pouch.

I would just like it on the record that Koalas are some of the single cutest animals in the world.

These are called Echindas, and they are some of the single weirdest looking animals that I've ever seen. They look like pocupines, but with livid yellow spines coming out of them.

There was a night house, a little hut that was kept dark so that we diurnal humans could have the privelage to view nocturnal animals in motion. It was pretty cool, but unfortunately we couldn't take flash pictures, which makes sense of course, which means that I don't have any pictures of the Wombat that I saw, and that this is the best picture of the amazing looking Bilby that I got to see. *tear*

On the other hand, it did let me see a Platypus up close. And yes, they are the weirdest looking animals in the world. I call them god's little joke.

The Tasmanian Devil never did wake up, though I returned to the cage multiple times during the day. Nonetheless, Tasmanian Devil! Yay!

From there I found my way to the reptile house. Outside of the reptile house they had this, a Komodo Dragon, and it was. . . big. Bigger than I'd expected. The Bull Mastiff of Lizards indeed.

This is a Veiled Chameleon. That's about it for this one.

These Scheltopusiks were some really disgusting looking lizards, yes, lizards. Like the spawn of a worm and a snake. Yuck.

~Taipan

Undoubtedly the strangest looking turtle that I've ever seen. They're called Mata Mata, and if a turtle were hewn from a granite boulder, this is what it would look like. Weird.

A Basilisk. Don't worry, I made sure to never look it in the eyes. I'm not that dumb.

This is a frilled neck lizard. It's kinda like the spitting dinosaur in Jurassic Park, only without the spitting. I just didn't even know that they climbed trees. Huh. You learn new things every day, eh?

These are Fierce Snakes, and while I can't personally vouch for their ferocity, I do know that they're the most poisonous snake in the world. One bite is enough to kill 200,000 mice. That's like 10,000 McDonalds Burgers!

They even had some . . . Monkey bars set up for their chimp exhibit.

Perhaps my favorite part of the day was the predator cages that they had set up. If you've never seen Lions or Tigers up close, they're impressive animals. You can see the muscles move just beneath their skin, all the while knowing that all that seperates you and death is a thin sheet of opaque sand. It's pretty cool.

The tigers spent the great majority of the day stalking back and forth along the glass edges of their enclosure. Still though, is that not an awesome picture?

SSSSiiiiimmmmmbbbbaaaahhhhh!

I don't know when in my life I developed the wish (I think it was from some free Junglebooks that I got when I was little. You know, the ones that were always advertised on TV? No? Oh well.) but I've always wanted to see a snow leopard. Well, there it is, and you can tell that he thinks he owns the world-that we're the ones inside of a cage and not him. There are times I wonder if he's right. . .

Some Dholes, a free-range dog-like species.

Yes, I even got to see a Tapir.

An emu. These are seriously big birds. Birdzillas, if you will. One of the people I was talking to over here says that one of the most traumatic experiences of his young life was being chased by an emu. I don't blame him. Still though, it was hard to resist the urge to jump the fence and try to ride it. . .

To sum it up, it was really, really awesome. These are the animals that you always hear about, but never get a chance to see. I loved it. So, what does one do to try and top that? Well, I tackled the question in a very literal fashion. I totally "topped" it.

I went up Sydney Tower. Apparently it's about 3meters shorter than the tower in Auckland (because the Kiwi's just had to beat their Aussie mates), but it's still the legally tallest building in the Sydney skyline. Truly, they passed an ordinance forbidding any contractors to build anything higher than the Sydney tower in Sydney.

The golden tower in the center of the picture is the Sydney tower, symbol of . . . something or other.

Like the ferry before it, it afforded some magnificent views of Sydney:

Darling Harbor at night.

While on the tower I met a nice guy from Adelaide who asked me all the usual questions about Americans "Why do you watch NFL when rugby's obviously better in every way? Why are you here, in _____? Where's your AK-47?" I've heard the exact same line of questioning probably a dozen times since I've been here, and it never ceases to make me giggle. To the rest of the world Americans are simply cowboys. I love it.

I leave you with a picture of a doofus:

Return again tomorrow to see what I did for day three, you know you want to.