Today we had a wonderful day at the zoo. This zoo is different to what we are used to. Because there is so much room in Australia, this zoo is very spread out. Each of the animal species have HUGE enclosures, none of them resembling cages. Some of them are more than 10-12 acres in size. It’s really nice to see how much room they have and how hard they’ve worked to create an exhibit similar to what they would have if they were in the wild. The animals really have it good here. The other nice thing the zoo offers is the choice of transportation between exhibits. You can walk, rent bikes, zoo carts or drive your car around.
There were lots of opportunities to interact with the animals. This is a picture of the the giraffes being fed carrots. We had no idea their tongues were so long.
Hannah didn’t shy away from petting a bearded lizard.
Hannah has always LOVED lions. She was so disappointed when we didn’t go to Namibia because she wanted to see lions so bad. Taronga Zoo actually has 4 lions/lionesses.
For a little extra money the zoo will give you an opportunity to actually feed the big cats. Given how much Hannah loves lions we signed her up. Sadly, the male lion was feeling a little lazy so he didn’t venture over. We did get to feed the lioness though.
They are much bigger than you think when you see them a little back like in most zoos. When you’re this close they are very intimidating. I was grateful for the fence between us.
We watched this huge Sumatran Tiger scale this 25 foot pole to retrieve some “roo” meat. It was no problem at all – so if you’re in a jungle and see a tiger, climbing a tree isn’t going to work!
This was really cool to see! It’s amazing how agile they are.
Even hippos have to have their teeth checked every now and then.
We loved the rhinos. There were 3 different types.
Hannah and I were walking along the path and we heard a noise. Hannah thought she saw a snake. Before we could move more than a foot away this fellow came out of the grass and scared us more than we’d like to admit!
Look closely at this picture. We saw our very first koala. Of course, it was asleep (they sleep up to 22 hours a day – crazy!).
After watching these ostriches for a while we decided they are a really strange creature. Everything is a bit strange when you really stop and take a look at them – their tiny heads (with ears), their flexible neck – does it even have bones?, their long, long, muscly legs and then of course there’s their feet. Put it all together and you have to ask – what in the world??
Everything about these giant tortoises is slow just like you might have thought.
By the time we got to the elephants we were all getting tired. Ian surrendered! He’d had enough.
It was a wonderful day!!
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