Taronga Zoo

This zoo is amazing. First, you have to take the ferry in Sydney Harbour to reach it, and once your are in you have great views on the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House and the City, which is always nice. Secondly, it is just the best zoo I have visited so far !

The animals encounters are just incredible : for 20$ (for up to 4 persons), you can spend time near a koala with zoologists answering all your questions, or give food to girafs... It was really a special moment for me as I am really not used to be with animals.

I fell in love with the baby gorilla and Luk Chai, the baby elephant. They are so cute !

We spent an afternoon there, and we did not have time to see all the animals... !

Photos are published on my travel blog.

The Taronga Zoo is an amazing zoo especially for being in a big city. The kangaroo, wallaby and emu enclosure was my favorite because you can get up close to the animals and some may even come out to the walkway. It was fun watching the emu chase the kangaroos and peck at their feet - it reminded me of wild west movies where the bad guy shoots at some random guy's feet to get him to dance.

If you're an animal lover and want to get even closer to the animals, I recommend doing the Taronga's Wild Australia Experience tour. A zoo keeper takes you through the Wild Australia exhibits and talks about all the different animals, gives you food to feed some of the animals and takes pictures of you with the animals. I learned so much about the animals and their stories about how they came to the zoo - it definately made seeing the animals more personal.

Some of the highlights:
* Feeding the emu and being freaked out by this tiny pointy beak coming straight for your hands (but don't worry...I still have all my fingers, he just wanted the leaves)
* Feeding and petting the wallabies (so much fun!)
* Pictures with Hamish (a cute chubby koala)
* Being on display with the bilbies in their nocturnal cage watching them devour food and petting them
* Seeing the food the animals get - fly pupae, mealworms, frozen mice...(yummy)

Even you don't do this tour, the zoo is so much fun.

Going to the zoo in Sydney is certainly a fun day out! Taronga Zoo sits on a hill on the opposite side of the harbour to Circular Quay, and the ferry takes you right to the entrance of the zoo. It's a 12-minute journey with excellent oppurtunities for taking photos of the Bridge and Opera House. You also get a good idea of how far the urban sprawl that is Sydney spreads. From the water it looks much like an Asian city, with multi-rise buildings that have crept right up to the banks of the water.

The ferry takes you to the zoo's lower entrance, and from there you can take a cable car to the top of the zoo. Then, you walk back down, seeing the animals on the way. It would work quite well except that we didn't plan our routes properly, not to mention we ended up running up and down the hill to catch all the animal shows. Don't wear high heels! I don't know why you would but I thought I should warn you in case, since a lot of the girls at the zoo that day were in a dress and high-heels (it was Valentine's day)!

I feel like in most zoos the best enclosure is often the elephant one, which was the case for Taronga Zoo, but probably the most unique enclosure was for the giraffes and zebras. Not because it was anything special, but because it backed into a classic view of the harbour. Since Africa I've sort of felt that taking photos of African animals at zoos is a bit redundant but this photo - one of giraffes heads stooping between the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House - is plastered on so many zoo brochures and is possibly what sells most zoo tickets. It's something unique. Where else would you get a view of an Australian city, with a giraffe in it?