Saturday 13th October 2012

Fortunately, Saturday turned out to be a rather nice day, as bro and I chose to visit Taronga as our last tourist trip. Even though I had already been, I enjoyed it more than enough to go again and I knew bro wouldn’t bother to go on his own. Would have been a waste of his online ticket and I wanted him to see the zoo.  

We caught the ferry over to Circular Quay, but before catching the Taronga Zoo ferry we wandered around the harbour to the Opera House. I was still determined to find that Sydney printed zip up jacket and was sure I had seen one on our travels. The Opera House gift shop was the only place I hadn’t double checked. To my disappointment, I wasn’t to find what I was after. Every store seemed to have jumpers with Sydney printed on them and I scored an over-sized one with Manly on it, but no jackets. I went overboard and purchased 4 Sydney printed t-shirts and bro bought himself a Harbour bridge travel mug.

Once loaded up with goodies, we made our way back to the wharf and off to Taronga Zoo for the day. Before entering the zoo, we decided to leave our shopping in the supplied lockers instead of lugging it around. It costs $5 for a number of hours, but it was well worth it!

This time around I was able to capture a few of the animals who were elusive on my visit. There were tracks that we chose not to follow – I don’t think bro was enjoying all the walking like I was. Instead of having lunch at the zoo, we went for ice-blocks and drinks, as the day became rather warm. The second trip certainly was a real treat. We approached the chimps as one horny male got a hankering for some sexual activity! Unfortunately I missed the beginning part, but was able to score the end on video. Turns out, they don’t have very long sessions at all, but he looked rather proud of himself as she raced off as fast as she could at the end. It was almost like she was giving him dirty looks from a distance as he recovered from the experience. Sex education at the zoo!

We stopped at the gift store half way through the zoo where I purchased a zip up fleecy Taronga Zoo jacket (sometimes we just have to settle) and a Gibbon (monkey) toy for my little boy. We worked our way down to the exiting gift store. There were no other major highlights like the chimp show, but I still enjoyed my second round. At the gift store I had a couple of photos taken with a massive stuffed koala, which is meant for children. That’s probably why the staff were looking at me strangely....lol. I’m a big child at heart – does that count?
I then purchased another zoo badge for my hat (a better one than I got on my first visit) and a zoo pen. When exiting the shop, there is a huge stuffed gorilla that I so would have loved to buy for my boy. But I’m guessing one that size would easily be $600+ and would have taken up an entire row of seats on the plane.

There were a few photos taken by the Taronga Zoo sign before we got on the ferry back to Circular Quay. By the time we arrived there, it was around 5pm. We grabbed fish and chips for dinner and headed for the wharf to catch the ferry over to Luna Park. As we entered the wharf, I commented on all the t-shirts the little shop there had. That’s when bro remembered we had forgotten to go back to the entrance of the zoo to get our belongings out of the locker. Do’h!

I couldn’t believe we had completely forgotten them, but at least one of us did eventually remember. Unfortunately we had to catch the next ferry back to the zoo, only to find it was closed. Luckily for us, they had a camp out planned for that night so we were able to line up with the campers until they opened the gate to allow them in. The staff must have thought we were bright sparks, but at least we were able to get our gear back! By the next day, the locker timer would have expired and we more than likely would have lost our stuff.
It was then a wait for the next bus to arrive and back on the ferry to Circular Quay.

By this stage both of us had just about had enough for the day....lol. But we wanted to visit Luna Park to say we had been there. It’s far prettier at night when it’s all lit up like a christmas tree. I was rather disappointed once there. We wandered down what I believe is the only strip to the park – unless we missed something. I had no intentions of buying any tickets to rides, as they look like they’re mostly for children. When you come from QLD where we have all the top theme parks like Dreamworld, Movie World, Sea World, Wet ‘n’ Wild etc, Luna Park (sorry if this insults Sydney residence) is just lame! Although, I did have my best Sydney ice-cream from there!

Within 15 minutes (that included time to buy and eat the ice-cream) we were back at the wharf waiting for the ferry over to Circular Quay. There was a rather cool breeze coming off the harbour and there was a reasonable wait.
It wasn’t too long before the ferry back to the apartment arrived.

Apart from having to return to the zoo, it was a pretty great day!