Come to Taronga Zoo. See our fabulous animals and city views.
It really was a great experience and I'd love to go back in the future.
Now, stick close to me, this is going to be a long one in multiple pieces! Be warned, there are a LOT of photos!
Wes and I got up pretty early to go to the zoo itself. I packed the camera bag and we both got dressed and moving rather quickly (I'm not exactly a morning person, so this shows just how excited I was about going to the zoo).
We were out of the house and on the train platform at Gymea station by around 8:15. We had decided that we were going to ride the train all the way in, rather than drive up a few stations and go from there like we have in the past. The ticket machine was busted, so we got our tickets from the window this time, then settled down on a bench to wait for our train.
The weather forecast had said that scattered showers were highly likely, so we'd brought along an umbrella just in case. As we were waiting for the train, the weather did look rather dark and gloomy. The sky was a dark slate grey and the clouds were moving past very quickly. Fortunately, the heavy skies didn't last all day and we didn't actually need the umbrella until we were almost home again!
The train ride in from Gymea was pretty easy, to be honest. We found an empty bench to snuggle into for the ride up to the city and kept it to ourselves for most of the trip. Toward the end of our brief journey, a young man with the sniffles sat next to me (and I did my best to avoid coming into contact with his germs; Plane Plague was bad enough, Trainitis would probably kill me).
We hopped off at Central, where things were considerably more crowded, and changed trains to get to Central Quay and our ferry. Once again, we found seats on the train without a problem and were soon at our destination--sort of. I suppose that Central Quay was more like a midway point than a destination, really, since our final destination of choice was the zoo.
Point is, we got there in no time!
After checking a map of the quay, we discovered that we needed to be at wharf two for the Taronga ferry and went over to buy our tickets. With our fares in our pockets and anticipation in our guts, we went for a short walk around the area near the wharves to examine the shops and restaurants, to check out the views and to finally watch little kids chasing the seagulls. When we saw that our ferry would be departing within fifteen minutes, we turned around and headed back to catch it.
The funny thing about the ferry wharves (or I suppose the practical thing) is that they're really pontoons. They're flat, concrete rafts buoyed on pontoons to accommodate the changes in tide and water levels. In order to board the ferry, you have to cross from the solid piers onto these little floating docks. We boarded the Golden Grove from the pontoon for the crossing.
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| Waiting for the ferry to launch. We were very near the bow. |
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| A whole boatload of new friends! |
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| Well, that's reassuring. |
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| And away we go! |
The Sydney Ferries have a really interesting history to them, which I found out upon returning home (and which apparently Wes knew all along, the smartass). Many of the ferries have been running for upwards of twenty years and all of them have interesting origins. The ferries themselves are named after ships from the First Fleet as well as famous Australians and landmarks.
I'm very glad to say that neither the pontoon nor the ferry made me seasick and that I got some great photos of the harbor during the crossing. We went past the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, Fort Denison, Luna Park and numerous other landmarks on our short trip.
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| The very beginning of the Opera House ... |
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| As our boat completed its turn out of the wharf, our fellow passengers took in the sights! |
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| The Sydney Harbour Bridge (and a bit of Luna Park) under very grey and cloudy skies. |
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| A better view (from a cropped photo) of Luna Park! |
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| Prime real estate, right there. |
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| Everybody wanted a photo of Fort Denison. |
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| Just a bit of Sydney's skyline. |
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| BOATS! And ominous looking clouds. |
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| Ohmigodohmigodohmigod! It's the zoo! |
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| The amazing view of the harbour looking backward. |
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| We've made it! Hooray! |
Because we sat on the deck rather than inside, it was a bit of a chilly passage, though we gladly stayed dry. On the way back, we rode the Lady Herron, which was considerably larger.
When we landed at the zoo, there were two buses waiting for passengers at the top of the ferry's ramp. Originally, we had planned to take the Sky Safari, a gondola-style cable car. Supposedly, these trips used to be free to ride for all ticket holders, but now you have to purchase a pre-paid pass specifically for the cable car to get a lift up the cliffs.
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| One of the Sky Safari gondolas that we didn't get to take. Sigh. |
Unfortunately, we only found this out when we arrived and were really quite disappointed, because the Sky Safari passes through most of the zoo and over top of many of the enclosures. Instead, we had to take the $2 per person bus to the top of the zoo, as the lower entrance had not yet opened for the day.
At least things went smoothly after that point, right? Right.
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| The formal, Edwardian entrance at the top of the hill and one of about a half dozen school excursions that we ran into. |
Funny enough, we arrived on a day when there were at least five school excursions in progress. We saw two groups of primary students at the entrance and at least three groups of middle and high school students further into the zoo. I decided to duck into the toilets at just the wrong time and ended up stuck behind a pack of red-uniformed little girls. I also ended up helping their chaperons turn the water on for them at the sinks. The girls were all between five and six years old and with the sinks being rather tall and difficult to keep running, they were in need of some extra help.
When I finally got free of my impromptu volunteer work, Wes and I entered the zoo proper. We were given wristbands to mark that we had paid to enter (in case we wanted to leave and come back for any reason) and started to explore.
