apparently.....: Take a Zoo tour with Captain Obvious

Ah the Zoo. Taronga Park Zoo.
It's hard to get around all the zoo in one day now, while still getting time to enjoy the animals, so we let Georgie choose what she wanted to see.
She remembered the seal show from last time - that was a must.
She also wanted to see Penguins, Elephants and Kangaroos. That was about all on her list.

So sit back and enjoy an immense amount of photos while I point out the bleedin' obvious. :o)

While Georgie loved the seal show (we just manage to sneak in up the back before the seal show began that morning) James wasn't keen on sitting still for that long.

One performing seal, fur seal I think.

Showing us his whiskers.

Not a bad view from the back seats of the seal show, is it?

Georgie was engrossed.

The elephants... well a couple of them.

The kids all love to climb on everything there is to climb on at the zoo so there's always a queue to get on these things. But they love it when they're up there.

Here's one from March 2007 - spot the difference!

I'd like to say she fits right in... but I'm not sure what that makes us, as her parents.
However I would like to say that we would be happy for this family to baby sit.

If you squint, or use your imagination, you can see the teenage gorilla in the swing and the Mummy with the baby in the back corner. Round to the right is a gorilla that is bigger than the one Georgie is sitting on in the picture above.

James wasn't that interested in the animals, but he *loved* climbing on this rock.

He especially loved it when Daddy helped him climb and then swung him off the top.

He couldn't see any reason for us to move from here all day.

hmmm... he seemed to recognise these Gorilla's as friendly too.

I'm beginning to worry - not to mention see a pattern here with my kids.

I think he's checking for bananas. He actually kissed the gorilla's tummy.

I could simply say it was the Daddy gorilla they seemed to recognise. But I won't ;o)

... some sort of ape.

The view from everywhere is astounding, but this one is on the way down to the new "Great Southern Ocean" area of the zoo.

Yes, yes it is real.

This was taken through a thick piece of glass. I'm sure this seal knew we were watching on the other side. Once he'd gone past the window he would do the rest of his lap under water.

Here he is underwater.

The new Great Southern Oceans area is terraced and you walk down through it looking at all the animals. These animals definitely have the best view in Sydney.

Below Georgie here is a pelican enclosure.

Pelicans

Leopard seal.

More view.

Into the penguin exhibit.

It was (possibly still is) mating season for the penguins when we visited, so really all we got to see is the bottom of them swimming on the top of the water. It was interesting, but hard to photograph. Occasionally we'd see one dive down, but they knew when I had my camera out.

Life size demo of the penguins. The end one, the Emperor was scarily big, it was up on a platform but it was a little shorter than me.

They had star fish and coral and shells growing all over their rocks in all the ocean cages.

Nice day to sun bake - it was about 27 degrees, but walking round the zoo it felt like 30+.

Both the kids were fascinated with the cable cars, but especially James who let us know every time one went by.

Neither of the kids were interested in the giraffes.

In fact by this stage all Georgie wanted was a lolly pop and to play with the other kids and James was asleep. But we got there for feeding time and I thought they were gorgeous.

Ok, so they're easy and cute to photograph. At least someone was looking at the camer and smiling!

James is *very* social and he just loved all the kids playing near the elephants, which is generally where we kept gravitating back to.

He's so close to walking here... he could if he wanted to, but it's just too slow to keep up with Georgie.

Georgie donating money to save endangered frogs. Her favourite bit. :o)

This is a Victoria Crowned Pigeon. It certainly looks interesting, and no Dad, we have no idea what it tastes like... however it's bigger than a chicken so you might get a bit of meat off it.

To give you an idea of its size. It was very friendly, eating all the grass the kids poked in.

Look carefully, it's a tree kangaroo, and it's up *very* high.

The zoo's smallest inhabitant perhaps?

Down in the Australian animal section you can walk through a kangaroo/wallaby/emu enclosure. Apart from the seal show it's probably Georgie's favourite bit.

She just loves kangaroos and most of the Australian native animals, running a bit late this day to see them all.

This little wallaby was just sitting there in what looked like a really uncomfortable, unnatural position then just as we were watching her a little head poked out. It was so cute.

Wonder if she ever wishes she could zipper the pouch shut?

Georgie wanted to go and pat them all.

Despite their are little barriers (intended to indicate to people to stay on the path) the foreigners were all climbing over to have a pat so I kept saying in a very loud voice everywhere "the sign says you're not allowed in there" eventually some of them came back to the path and said to each other 'oh wow, the sign does say that'.

You don't want to mess with an angry kangaroo, they're definitely not cute and cuddly. (I've been right there and experienced it and can still remember the fear to this day.) Anyway....