Taronga Zoo and Manly Beach

My friends and I travelled to the Taronga Zoo last weekend and it was such a blast! We took a beautiful ferry ride there which passed by the bridge and opera house. Unfortunately we are not considered "real students" so we couldn't get all the great zoo and ferry discounts. I felt bad for the man selling tickets because almost every one of us was sassy with him in frustration. Regardless, the full price tickets were still worth it.

Once we got to the zoo we were like kids in a candy store, squealing at every animal we saw. I won't list them all but here are some pictures of the memorable moments and I will describe them in order.

The huge pelicans were one of the first things we saw. They were so big that I am pretty sure they could swallow me whole if they really wanted to. Nothing eventful happened with the birds but it was one of my favorite exhibits so I figured I would put it in.

Next was the lemur. It came right up to the glass an was cooing right in our faces. Another one of my favorites.

The next three pictures are located in the children's petting zoo which held sheep, pigs, and chickens (very Australian, I know). My friends and I pretty much stampeded over the small children to get our hands on sheep pellets. The zoo worker rolled his eyes at us but still gave us each a handful of food! Once the worker had left, one sheep decided to try and escape by jumping the fence into the standing area. It obviously didn't think things through because I ran at it full force, hands streched outward to pet it. It got so scared that it aborted the mission and jumped right back into the pen, but not nearly as gracefully as it had lept out (as you can see in the picture).

Next we saw an emu which was just roaming around the zoo without a care in the world. After this picture was taken I tried to get close enough to touch it but right as I was an arms length away it fluffed its feathers and made a very low noise from inside its throat threateningly. Obviously I turned and ran as fast as I could. It reminded me of the time I was almost attacked by that mother swan in Karlsruhe, Germany as a child.

Last but not least is the kangaroo. All of his kangaroo mates were laying lazily on the ground sleeping, but this one bounded right up to the side of the pit. Someone threw in a map which was eaten and demolished within 30 seconds.

We ended the day watching fireworks from the Darling Harbour bridge.

That same weekend we went to Manly Beach - another ferry ride away. We sun bathed in the middle of winter and watched the surfers. We also walked around the downtown area a bit which was very cool and sporty. We bought ice cream which was deliciousss. Unfortunately it did me no favors as I got a huge wad of chocolate stuck between my two front teeth right as we ran into people we knew. I was laughed at for five minutes.