Coffee was again priority 1, but at least the air was not as cold as yesterday, mercifully. drove over the harbor bridge into North Sydney, the first thing you notice over that side of town is the complete difference in housing to any part of Sydney I have seen so far, nearly every house looks like a quaint little English cottage, one thing is for sure everyone on that side of town that doesn't live in high density apartments HAS MONEY, especially the people who live down on the harbor or with harbor views!
My first stop was Taronga zoo, once I was extorted out of $10.00 for parking and then $38.00 entry fee I went into the world of Japanese tourists blocking every view and little children shrieking at every corner.
It was so hard to see anything and even harder to enjoy the moment, all these Japanese tourists were blocking views trying to get photo's and every time an animal got close enough to appreciate it was frightened back into vegetative obscurity by a camera flash, I don't mean to complain it was just disappointing that they showed no concern for anyone elses experience at the zoo, and I'm happy that children are exited and having fun,,, but the shrieking has the same effect as the camera flashes, despite all of this I had a great experience there with some qualities encounters with some of the animals. The zoo is much larger than I remember as a kid, probably cause I am so much larger but the zoo has changed quite a bit, new exhibits, refurbished exhibits, the best part of it is without question the new Oceanic exhibit, It's a bit like underwater world, you get to be at eye level with leopard seals under the water, penguins and Australian sea lions.
Surprisingly most of the animals were quite lively, up and about in the enclosures, so you got a pretty good look at most of the animals, even the tigers and lions were up and about.
The most amazing thing that I noticed was how all of the animals, even the stupid ones were able to associate green button up shirts with food (All of the animal handlers wore this as a uniform) for example a bunch of kids and adults walked past two leopard seals, they didn't react at all, as soon as a keeper walked past that both like a shot of lightning swam for the feeding area (Or what I assume is the feeding area) but the same behavior was repeated through all of the exhibits!!!!
Oh the coffee at the tree tops cafe is exceptional and surprisingly cheap, I thought it would be like sporting events where you get charged $15.00 for a warm flat beer served in a cup that 3 months ago was landfill, but no only $4.00 for a mug!
Oh and I discovered a way of scaring children to keep them quiet for a few minutes! what you do is walk slowly up to a dark enclosure in the underground reptile section, looking like you have seen something incredible or frightening, they stop shrieking and talking and focus on what your doing, walk closer and closer,,, soon they start coming towards the enclosure with you trying to figure out what the hell you are looking at (I should point out the enclosure was closed down for renovation) then just as you have drawn in the maximum amount of shrieking irritations, scream, yell and run in the opposite direction,, it gets rid of most of them, the rest are much quieter, some of the parents find it amusing, others (The ones with BMW's in the car park) don't look too impressed,,, but it's good fun! and you might actually get to see the sugar glider you searching for before it was scared into it's hole by the kids!
Next I drove out to Manly and stopped into one of the nature reserves out at North Head, it was spectacular, it reminded me a bit of Guiraween National Park near Tenterfield, same sort of rocky granite scrub, but the best part of it were the cliffs along the shoreline,, have a look at the pics it was breathtaking! and rather scaring in high wind!
Next I drove back to the city and once the car was safely at the meriton I walked down through China Town to go to the powerhouse museum. China Town here is exactly the same as China Town in Brisbane! I also found paddy's markets they were huge.
The powerhouse museum had some good exhibits but again I didn't seem particularly interesting, and like the barracks museum wasn't very consistent, the space exhibit was fantastic, and I thought the nuclear matters section was pretty good, but apart from that I didn't really capture my imagination,, from memory I didn't really do it when I was a kid either, but like the barracks museum compared with other places to see it was really cheap,, only $10.00 for an adult and is still enough to keep you occupied for an hour or so, maybe I just wasn't in the mood this afternoon?
Right tomorrow I start a week of work ..... sigh!!!!! and then it's off to Katoomba yeahhhhh.
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