Day 10
By Sarah Keaten

Today we woke up, had breakfast, and headed off on an adventure across Sydney to Circular Quay Harbor to catch the ferry to Taronga Zoo. The ferry ride across the harbor was wonderful, everyone took tons of pictures of the fabulous view. When we reached our destination across the harbor we had to take a VERY STEEP gondola (cable car) ride up a mountain to get to the zoo entrance.

In the entryway of the zoo was a giant stuffed koala that we all got pictures with. The first thing we saw after the giant koala was several life-sized ones. In every exhibit the animals were so much closer than at any other zoo we had ever been to! The wallaby exhibit was the first one we went through; we got to walk right through the exhibit, close enough to touch them. This zoo had everything and more, we got to see animals distinctly Australian; animals we couldn’t see anywhere else in the world. Platypi (which were a lot smaller than we thought they’d be), kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, echidnas, etc. We got to go through every part of the zoo, and saw so many animals up close! For most of the time we were at the zoo it was feeding time, and we got to watch the zookeepers feeding some of the animals. We wandered over half the zoo, seeing the platypi, night life, emus, echidnas, reptiles (including a massive kimodo dragon), saw the giraffes (VERY close!) being fed, etc, and then headed down to the Taronga Food Market to grab some lunch around 1:45. We had to eat lunch really quickly because some of the shows  we really wanted to see started at 2:15. After lunch we stopped by the gorilla exhibit to watch them being fed at 2:00. It was so funny! It was a family group complete with young ones who were quite mischievous. One little guy kept going around and stealing all the good food until he was caught by a female who grabbed him by a hind leg, flipped him in the air and stole his ill-gotten banana. The exhibit held only females and young until the silverback showed up. He shooed everyone away from the feeding area where keepers were throwing down fruit. The same little troublemaker kept trying to sneak past him to score some fruit and kept getting run off by the big male. It was so much fun to watch them interacting with each other, and again, they were so close to the crowd, we could see everything they were doing.  After being amused by the gorillas for a few minutes, we ran down to see the seal theatre show at 2:15. Those sea lions are so smart; they responded to the most minute cues! While there we saw an enormous leopard seal. It was incredibly predatory, so quiet in the water, and so different from the noisy, boisterous sea lions.

We then saw the big cats, who were being fed. Through a pane of glass, we got close enough to touch them. The lion exhibit held two huge male lions and two playful female lions, all four of whom seemed to pose for us at every opportunity. We saw two tigers being fed who didn’t seem nearly as amused by us as the lions, and saw snow leopards as well.

From there we headed over to the Free Flight Bird Show at 3:00, which was by far the most incredible thing anyone saw at the zoo. The show was held at a point overlooking the Sydney Harbor and in the distance we could see the Sydney Tower, the enormous bridge spanning the harbor, the Sydney Opera House, and all of downtown Sydney. The keepers had trained the birds to fly so close overhead that their wing feathers grazed some peoples’ heads. The show included owls, cockatoos, buzzards, waterbirds, and a confused emu egg-eating hawk who refused to believe that he’d gotten everything out of the egg possible. He took a rock in his beak and broke the egg open with it, ate what was inside, and continued trying to “open” the same empty egg with the rock.

After the aviary show we walked down to the ferry to go back across the harbor (yes, we did have to walk back down the mountain). We walked back to the hotel and had a bit of time left for ourselves before getting ready to play that night. After meeting downstairs at 6 PM, we boarded the bus to head to the gym to play. There were three courts running at the same time, so the mighty mites and the “big kids” played at the same time. The mighty mites won in three, 25-11,26-24, and 25-23. Coach Kirstin was so proud of everyone that awards were given to the younger team: Stacey got player of the game, Nikki got best server, Caitlin got the best dig, Mariah got the best cut shots, Chelsea got the best surprise! passer, Kamryn got the best hustle award. However, the older team didn’t do as well. They lost in five: 25-19,17-25, 25-12, 20-25, 10-15. We played two different teams (very different skill levels) who switched out each game. After the matches we mingled with the opposing teams for a few minutes before heading out to go back to the hotel. We were on our own for dinner and some of the girls went across the street to Tony Roma’s, while the “sickies” (thanks for the label, Chris) had soup and hot tea from the convenience store. All in all it was a very good day; we ended up seeing things we’d never thought we’d see; I personally loved the zoo, it was one of the best zoos I’ve ever been to. We’re all exhausted from the day,  but it was very fulfilling. We miss you, Dan!!

PS,  We even saw the Fijian Striped Iguana, so catch one for us next time we come Dan!!!!