Here I am again – I know, I know – Sydney is almost a vague memory, I spent so much time getting around to telling you all about it! Anyway DAY TWO – here goes…….2 words – TARONGA ZOO!!! Awesome! We set off bright and early, piled into a maxi taxi and got a real cool dude of a taxi driver. He took us to the wrong entrance and told us to make sure we saw the white tiger! Well after 4 hours of traipsing all over however many hectares there are folks, I am here to tell ya that there ain’t no white tigers at Taronga Zoo!!! No kidding! Just about everything else…..including normal orangy coloured tigers – but none of the ghostly white kind. Well we had a fun day, legs nearly dropped off – my fave animals were:
1. the zebras (of course! I love any kind of “horsey” animal) …..and
2. the squirrels- they are so little and FAST!!! Man, can they scarper! (I need one……)
3. the meer cats – they are really cute too
We saw the seal show, watched the chimps do rude things (chimps have NO shame….), had a ride in the Sky Safari (that was pretty awesome!), checked out all the snakes, spiders, lizards, creepy crawly things and the Komodo Dragon (my son’s favourite!!!!), gorillas, elephants. giraffes, birds, african do-das with horns, foxes with huge ears, kangaroos, koalas, crocodiles, chimps, leopard seals, hippos, rhinos, monkeys, squirrels, zebras, meer cats, goats with strange names and stripes, lions, tigers, blah blah blah, and the list goes on and on and on……I almost can’t remember them all!!
We had a lovely lunch – had to fight the rainbow lorikeets and kookaburras for it, every time we turned our back they were nicking (stealing) something off our plates! Well the afternoon wore on and all too soon it was time for just one more stop before going home – the gift shop! My son couldn’t make up his mind which fluffy friend he needed to add to his already substantial family of stuffed animals back home – so he left without adopting one. It is a tradition of ours that every time we visit a wildlife sanctuary or zoo etc ……. of which there have been considerable visits……he buys a fluffy toy to commemorate the visit. We have crocodiles, lace monitors, snakes, emus, dolphins, sharks, turtles, manta rays, elephants, giraffes, did I say crocodiles???? (that’s his all-time fave – thank you Steve Irwin!).
We bolted for the ferry – just made it – then back to our apartment for a little rest before the boys had to get ready for their next adventure – The Harbour Bridge Climb!! Not for the faint hearted, I might add! That’s why I didn’t go…..for the following reasons…….
1. I don’t like heights…..
2. I don’t “do” stairs or ladders……
3. I don’t like heights…….
4. I didn’t like the overalls they made you wear – not my colour…….
5. I don’t like heights……and that about wraps it up!
So Vince, Jake, Jeff and Katie went off to do the Bridge Climb. Trish, Bryce and me went in search of food. Something edible, cooked – not raw, somewhere we could interpret what the waitress was saying, somewhere that had a nice fat juicy Aussie steak! Well we found it – a good ‘ol Aussie pub 3 block from our apartments. And it even had a take away Bottle-O (liquor store for all who do not understand my lingo) across the road where we could stock up on supplies. Well by the time the intrepid Bridge climbers conquered the heights of the Harbour……it was late and they could not wipe the smiles off their faces!! Obviously they’d had a great time and had pictures to prove it.
Well this is the end of Day 2 – I forgot to mention the drama that occurred in our apartment on Night 1…….About 11pm this funny beeping noise started coming from our fire alarm…..it got louder and louder, then the siren went off and of course, we hurriedly changed from pyjamas into something less embarrassing because all of a sudden the automated voice is urging us to “Evacuate the Building, Evacuate the Building”!!!!!! We called our friends who were three floors above us and they said they couldn’t hear it….so we went out into the corridor to see what was happening on our floor. A couple of our neighbours (who were apparently long term tenants in the building) said that this sort of thing happens all the time and that the alarm would eventually go off!!!! What the……????? Anyway, eventually the alarm stopped and all was back to normal – except, of course, my panic button had gone off and could not be re-set to “calm down”. We did manage to catch a couple of hours sleep……
Keeping that in mind…. tonight, Night 2, we go to sleep rather late – after midnight – and about 4 am, guess what happens!!!!! OH YES!!! beep, beep, beep, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP – stinking fire alarm again!!!!!! So we go out into the corridor again – this time the neighbours just tell us to go back to bed ‘cos that’s where they’re going…..I call the number for the night duty and get some woman who’s not even on site who tells me that if a fire alarm went off in her holiday accommodation then she would hot-foot it outside as quick as possible – well of course, so would I in “normal” circumstances…….and I tried to explain the false alarm the evening before but she had hung up on me! Obviously the switch board was jammed with calls at that hour of the morning and she was too busy to talk to me……(note to self….find out who that woman is so that she NEVER works as a customer service representative in any business I own….). By the time we get back to bed… the alarm clock goes off – waking us up in time to catch the early train to go see some friends of ours……Boy were we tired and grumpy…..
Day 3 next time and pics too……
See ya! Have a great week! ….Cheers – Sandy
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