{"id":14618,"date":"2018-11-13T03:29:21","date_gmt":"2018-11-13T08:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=14618"},"modified":"2018-11-25T01:41:02","modified_gmt":"2018-11-25T06:41:02","slug":"taronga-zoo-sydney-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=14618","title":{"rendered":"Taronga Zoo – Sydney, Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday – November 13, 2018<\/p>\n

We woke up to a beautiful sunny day in Sydney with the temperature about 67 degrees Fahrenheit. \u00a0During the week we traveled around the interior of Australia, we never saw any wild animals. \u00a0Australia is known for its exotic only-place-in-the-world animals and we wanted to see them before we left the country. \u00a0So today we went to Taronga Zoo which is a short ferry ride across the harbour from the CBD of Sydney. That\u2019s another cruise ship tied up at the dock in the photo below. \u00a0There seems to be a new one every other day.<\/p>\n

\"DSC<\/p>\n

After a 10-minute ferry ride, we boarded an ariel tram-way to the top of the steep hill where the zoo is located. \u00a0It\u2019s a fun ride because the cars float over the zoo and travelers can look down on the animal’s pens.<\/p>\n

\"DSC<\/p>\n

The first exhibit we saw was the \u201cKoala Walkabout.\u201d \u00a0We did the walking. \u00a0The koala, which are known to sleep for 18 to 20 hours a day, were dozing off. \u00a0But cute anyway!<\/p>\n

\"DSC<\/p>\n

We heard very loud squawking and followed the sound to a peacock who was strutting his stuff:<\/p>\n

\"DSC<\/p>\n

On our way to the Aviary – bird enclosure, I spotted a \u201cwild\u201d animal. \u00a0I guess this Australian water dragon lives in the zoo on his own and easily finds food. \u00a0Or he escaped from one of the tanks in the reptile house. \u00a0I did a Google search to find out that this lizard is common in and around Sydney and New South Wales. \u00a0It was about 10 inches long.<\/p>\n

\"DSC<\/p>\n

My photos in the Aviary weren\u2019t very good, but here is a picture of an Eclectus Parrot:<\/p>\n

\"DSC<\/p>\n

We went into the building that houses nocturnal animals and I tried to take photos but none of them worked well. \u00a0Too dark. \u00a0Outside the building I saw an echidna and took a picture. \u00a0They\u2019re also known as spiny anteaters and are one of four mammals that lay eggs. \u00a0We saw several platypus inside a building, as well as wombats, bandicoots, quokkas, quolls, and Tasmanian devils.<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

We followed signs to the \u201cKangaroos\u201d and were surprised to see a sign near the entrance that read \u201cHop In.\u201d \u00a0So we entered the kangaroo enclosure and saw kangaroos, wallabies, and emus \u201cup close and personal.\u201d \u00a0All the animals totally ignored the people walking along the path through their cage! \u00a0The kangaroos were resting and the wallabies were eating. \u00a0Unbelievable!!<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

\"DSC<\/p>\n

\"DSC<\/p>\n

Some kind of pelican:<\/p>\n

\"DSC<\/p>\n

A Goodfellow\u2019s tree kangaroo asleep in a tree fern:<\/p>\n

\"DSC<\/p>\n

Komodo dragon lizard – also sleeping:<\/p>\n

\"DSC<\/p>\n

Australian brushturkey aka bush turkey picking up crumbs on a table in the snack bar of the zoo:<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

It was fun to finally see Australian animals! \u00a0We rode the ferry back to downtown Sydney:<\/p>\n

\"IMG<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tuesday – November 13, 2018 We woke up to a beautiful sunny day in Sydney with the temperature about 67 degrees Fahrenheit. \u00a0During the week we traveled around the interior of Australia, we never saw any wild animals. \u00a0Australia is known for its exotic only-place-in-the-world animals and we wanted to see them before we left […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14618"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14622,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14618\/revisions\/14622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}