Zoological Expedition

We went to the Taronga Zoo on Tuesday, a day chosen more due to weather conditions more than anything else. Skies have been overcast in Sydney on and off for the last couple of days, and since it looked as if the cloud cover would continue on Tuesday, Ronald suggested that we go and take advantage of the shade.

I started the day early by taking the ferry back into the city to investigate the possibility of changing Ben and Jake’s tickets so they could return to Montana a week or two early. The New Zealand Airlines office is just a few blocks from the ferry warf, and it was easy to walk there to see if the matter could be settled. Unfortunately, I was told that we couldn’t really do anything; the tickets could not be changed without a price increase, and that price increase could not be determined until our Montana travel agent confirmed the original reservation. However, it was an easy matter to get a one way ticket to the Taronga Zoo landing via another ferry, and I was on my way to meet Ronald, who had driven to the zoo with Jayne, Benjamin, and Jacob.

The zoo was fantastic. When I arrived at the warf, I took a cable car up the hill to the zoo proper, but Ronald and the family had taken the same cable car DOWN the hill to meet me. They yelled at me as our cars passed, and we waved at each other. All they had to do was stay on the car and come back up, and all of us were reunited.

There were beautiful grounds and exotic animals aplenty. We started with reptiles and ended with an Australian "bushwalk" that allowed us into an enclosure with wallabies and emus with no bars between us whatsoever. The wallaby was particularly cute, and some tourists posed with the little creature while they petted it. We also saw the platypus, the Tasmanian devil, tigers, lions, several different kinds of bears, Indian elephants, and other animals too numerous to mention. We must have walked miles through all kinds of canopied pathways to the various exhibits, and I am not at all sure we saw all there was to see in the hours we were there.

After leaving the zoo, we visited Ronald’s wife, Jane, at the Mosman Library, a very nice public library situated above a cricket oval in this north Sydney suburb. Jane showed us around, introducing us to all the librarians and giving us a behind the scenes tour. It was particularly interesting for me to see how our Australian colleagues do business. After our visit, Jane pointed the way to the Mosman Art Gallery where we saw some interesting works done in a variety of mediums. Nautical theme’s predominated, with a special nod to Mosman’s whaling heritage. By the time we got home, we were bushed, and all of us turned in early after a spirited family poker game. Jayne got up this morning and posted a few pics of the zoo trip for your amusement.