Taronga Zoo and Sydney Aquarium

April 24
Sydney
Breezy and cloudy with afternoon rain

Finding the Kinkos this morning facilitated uploading the journal entries, and should help also with uploading what photos I do take. I'm doing much less than I did in the past -- my colleague is doing the course blog at http://ecaustralia08.blogspot.com and should have many nice ones there.

I'm pretty happy that I've gone back to film. It lacks the immediacy of feedback, but the shutter opens without a delay when the button is pressed. And I just went too long with cameras that behaved that way to ever be comfortable with the digitals -- at least until they find a way to shorten the delay so that I don't notice it.

We introduced the students to Sydney's mass transit system today, taking them on the subway and then a couple of ferry rides. My colleague went out earlier and bought day passes for all of us. $16 (Australian) gets a ticket that is good until 4am the next day on all the subways and most of the ferries.

Our ferry to Taronga Zoo was one of the rivercats, which is a little different than what we encountered in the past. The older green and yellow ferries are still in use, and in fact we did ride on those back from Taronga and over to Darling Harbour later in the day. I prefer the older ones; ferry rides are best done on an outside deck, and there's only space for 28 outside on the rivercats. There's plenty of outside room on the older ferries.

So far, I'm pretty impressed with this group of students along with us. They've been engaged in the course experiences with little complaining. More importantly, they seem to be pretty friendly with one another. A group that looks out for one another will do very well as we progress through the course.

The last time I was in Australia was 2006, and in that two years a lot has changed at Taronga Zoo. Several habitats have come online, such as the one for the elephants. The cable cars we ride up to the top of the zoo glide right over the elephant habitat, much to the delighted surprise of the students who rode up with me. The ocean animal exhibit that includes the sea lions and the little penguins has been relocated into a more sophisticated viewing area, though the old empty and drained pools have not yet been dismantled.

New to me was an outdoor riverbank habitat that includes a platypus -- it was in its burrow when I was there, unfortunately. I also did not get a photo of the echidna, though my colleague did. But I did get nice photos of some black swans and other birds, and can also include photos of tree kangaroos and swamp wallabies in next year's course booklet.

The bird show had an unexpected moment involving an Andean Condor, the only non-native bird in the show. It's an enormous bird, with a wingspan of nearly ten feet, and when it soared above the crowd at the show, it startled several birds in the area, who started squawking and chasing it around. Though the host treated it as a humorous event, it was pretty clear that the handlers were concerned. The birds used in the show all have tracking devices installed, and so the bird would be found should it not return; the staff was no doubt more concerned about what damage the local birds might do to the condor. But it did come back eventually and finish the show. All in all, it was an enjoyable experience, as usual.

There is also a new attraction nearby the Aquarium, a nature center called Wildlife World. I hope to scout it out on Saturday to see whether it would be suitable for future years. It looks to have several enclosed ecosystems and might serve as a good introduction to the rainforests and plains regions.

We arrived at the Sydney Aquarium in mid-afternoon, right around feeding time for the estuarine crocodile. The handlers come out with a large fish that looked like a barramundi, and, protected by a thick Plexiglas shield, held the fish over it and waited for the croc to jump up to take the fish. It obliged after a moment, much to the delight of the crowd.

It was also feeding time for the little penguins. They are every bit as cute as the koalas, and seem to have a better temper about them.

One exhibit feature that caught my attention was a visitor-controlled camera that allowed enhanced views of some of the tanks. The visitor could manipulate the position of the videos camera and control the zoom factor, with the image showing up on a screen nearby the tank. This allowed a person to concentrate on features of the small fish not otherwise visible.

We dispersed at the Aquarium. It's located in Darling Harbour, a very busy area that caters to tourists with many restaurants, shops, and other museums. I came back to the hotel to begin working on their first quiz, taken on Sunday.

When my colleague returned in the evening, we went out for dinner at a Mexican restaurant, and then visited a nearby supermarket. Food prices down here have gone up so much in the last two years! It is quite unbelievable. Bananas have always been ridiculously high here -- they grow the darned things in Queensland, but I think those are shipped to Asia, with Australians buying imports from the Philippines. But everything else is expensive as well, very different from what I had become accustomed to in past years. It's oil prices, of course, but also the drought here has driven up food prices, too. It's worse than in the states.

Tomorrow is ANZAC Day, and I hope to see some of the students at the parades and services. It will be interesting to see what the Australians do.