the globe rover

Taronga Zoo, Sydney, Australia
Sunday, September 24th, 2006

Anyone who knows me knows that I have an affinity for animals and especially primates. So as I always do in a new city, I joined the Sydney Zoo and started to pay attention to their special events. Last night was one such event which was a unique and exciting time…I slept at the zoo! The event is called Roar and Snore and most nights during the season they allow 20-30 guests to camp out at the zoo and do some neat behind the scenes stuff. So a couple of friends from work and I packed up our overnight bags and headed to the zoo. Easy camping, an adults only night, and an adventure with the animals here we come!

We started the afternoon with Bedtime for Chimps (another Taronga Zoo Member event) which allowed us to go to the back of the exhibit to watch them be put up for the night. Amazing to get so close to 19 chimps ranging in age from 2 ½ to 59.

They are amazing and playful creatures and made us all smile as they ran around their den eating their last meal of the night and using the shredded paper to make their nests. The rest of the evening was spent touching and learning about different animals such as crocodiles, lizards, snakes, insects, wallabies (the one we played with was eight months old and great fun) and then a night tour through the zoo in the dark. Very cool to see the place after hours and get a glimpse of animal behaviour at night (and no kids running around screaming). Then this morning we had another animal visit with a very friendly koala and then another tour through the zoo before hours.

The most unique thing we got to do was go into the giraffe exhibit and feed the five big giraffes carrots! Their tongues are long and slimy but they are amazing animals.

It was such a fun and different way to spend a Sunday night/Monday morning and I feel so enriched having learned about animal conservations and the lengths the Taronga Zoo goes to in order to make the environments as close to the natural habitat as possible. Good stuff and a highly recommended event for animal lovers!

Bondi Beach, Sydney Australia

I went to the beach in Australia for the first time on Saturday. It was great…a Saturday at the end of September with warm weather and blue skies. And of course, Sydney is synonymous with water and beaches so I knew I needed to jump right in and get out there.

Not five minutes from the walk to the beach did we see helicopters flying suspiciously low. Sure enough we show up and there was a police helicopter circling, two jet skis ripping through the waters, and all the swimmers out of the water. Turns out there were between two and three sharks that had probably followed in a school of fish. Needless to say, I didn’t make it in the water but I’d like to think it was just because the water was so cold. It was an amazing day at the beach though. I could get used to this lifestyle….