Taronga Zoo

08/07/2007

Last weekend my sister Michelle and I went to Taronga Zoo. I haven't been there since I was a little kid, so I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. Unfortunately the weather was miserable, damn cold and drizzling rain the entire day.
The lighting was poor, making it very difficult to take photos with my camera. I really wished for an SLR with better noise control for high-ISO, low-light; as it was I had to put up with slow shutter speeds and lots of blurry shots. These are the few that are worth posting; and that mainly by virtue of the cute :D

I didn't really believe that bears actually sat like this. These bears were particularly lazy, ambling along to pick up the fruit that was thrown to them. Not that I blame them for their lethargy; it was a miserable day and my hands were shivering and numb with the cold as I took these photos.

The lions looked nice and warm though. This pic came out surprisingly well, considering it was through smudgy glass and very low light. But the lions' sprawling pose was too sweet to pass up.

And the meercats stoicly dutiful. The meercats were funny to photograph. They dart around unpredictably with quick, birdlike movements, utterly still in between. So each photo had roughly equal chance of catching the meercat frozen still, or a blurred streak across the frame!

You want the cute..?

You can't handle the cute!
The red pandas were certainly the cutest animals there. They were quite active, playing with each other in the trees, and weaving in and out of the undergrowth. Always on the move - except for this one - they were almost impossible to catch steady on camera.

More cuteness!

These were the easiest of all the animals to photograph, since they stood stock still, so still you questioned whether they were live or stuffed. But they were live - these ones posed proudly for any photographer who came past. I don't know why, I suppose these males were making some show of strength to intimidate any interloper? But it looked just like they were lining up for a group photo each time!

And as cute as this elephant was, he wasn't actually a zoo exhibit :) (I had fun wearing the elephant mask (it was too small to wear as a mask - I couldn't see through it - so I wore it as a hat) the entire time at the zoo and back to Circular Quay, embarrassing Michelle :D )

On the ferry trip back to Circular Quay at the end of the day, we were sitting inside the boat with this plush seal I couldn't resist buying from the gift shop. A little girl of about three or four years was running around and, when she saw my seal, sidled cautiously up to us without saying anything, reached out tentatively to give it a pat, and then ran off around the corner. I thought this a bit odd, going up to pat a stranger's plush toy wordlessly and then running off, but sweet nonetheless. But a minute later the girl reappeared, pulling her mother by the hand and pointing over to us. When her mother saw us, she laughed and said, "Honey, it's alright, that's just a toy seal!" I let the girl play with the seal before her mother led her away again. :)

Royal National Park

These are from shortly after I moved to Sydney, in the National Park to the south. I just like them :)

People go hang-gliding from here. I didn't see any that day though; I guess the weather was wrong.

'Till next time, fare well!