This was the day off we’d planned to coat-tail on the back of yesterday’s work. Since we had a Sydney Pass now, we bought an extra bus/ferry daily pass and went off to explore. Heading down to Circular Quay again, we took a ferry to Taronga Zoo. Since we are members of the Friends Of The Zoo (FOTZ) for the Melbourne Zoo, we got reciprocal free entry to the Taronga Zoo, making it a very cheap outing. Instead of $19 per person, we just strolled to the head of the pre-paid queue, and took a chairlift from the ferry wharf to the zoo entrance at the top of the hill.

As we were going up the hill in the chairlift, another woman in the car looked down and said “oh, there’s a cow thingy!” pointing into an enclosure. We both looked down, and I corrected her, telling her it was a water buffalo. Di then pointed out a bit further away and said “that’s a cow”. Sure enough, there was most certainly a Friesian cow being used for some sort of farm animal demonstration. Trav found it most disappointing he’d not known about it, since he loves to go along to those demonstrations and find out what tourists are being told about cows. Inevitably there is something so off-track like “a lot of farmers in Australia still milk their cows by hand” that it provides a damn good laugh, if nothing else. Oh, and the chance to stick one’s hand up and ask difficult questions if the demonstrating person deserves it…*grin*

We spent the morning strolling around looking at the various animals and noting the differences between display design in Taronga Zoo vs Melbourne Zoo. It was all very interesting, though even the Zoo was closing off some exhibits to make them look better for the Olympic visitors.

That was probably the one thing about Sydney that stunned us more than anything else - a mere thirty days to go before the Olympics are held, and there is so much development and construction work going on that is obviously not going to be finished. Some things do need to be modified at the last minute, to allow for special Olympic driving lanes and the like, but things like the Zoo should not be doing modifications and closing down exhibits for visitors before the Olympics. Everyone in that zoo had paid good money to get in and see all the animals on offer, so it was disappointing to see even the Zoo had decided it was better to cater for the incoming two weeks of tourists, than the constant stream they get all year round.

Our SPOTD’s were found at the spider monkey enclosure. Two young men of limited intelligence were laughing and pointing to the monkeys, yelling “Hey, there’s my mum! Hi mum! And there’s my dad! And look there’s me! Hey! Hey dad! What are you doing in that cage?” All around the zoo were signs on nearly every enclosure telling people not to feed the animals, but of course, such signs are only meant for some people. These two men, for example, were exempt from that ruling. One of them told the other he was going to feed them a banana, and then hurled it into the cage. Naturally, this got the attention of the other spider monkeys and they all came racing over to get some fruit as well. Another banana got thrown into the cage, quickly pounced upon by another monkey.

The third and final banana was being watched by one monkey hanging out from a branch toward the men. They stood there saying “We’ll give you a banana if you clap! Go on! Clap! Clap!”, clapping their hands to show what they wanted the monkey to do. It was actually rather funny to watch two grown men clapping and encouraging the monkey to imitate them, all for the sake of a banana. The spider monkey looked at them bemused, then scratched it’s forearm while it waited for them to stop making that stupid clapping noise and throw them the banana. “No! Not scratch! Clap! Not scratch! Clap or there is no banana for you!” they instructed and, after a minute or so of them clapping, the monkey realised what it had to do. It gave a couple of quick claps, the men cheered and threw it the final banana.

They could have been offering worse than fruit to monkeys, so it did not seem worth saying something to them about not feeding the animals. Also, there was a zoo worker sitting behind them in a van, waiting for a concrete-truck to reverse out of the way, and if the zoo worker was not going to jump out and stop them, we did not consider it to be our responsibility.

After the spider monkeys, we wandered down to look at the farm animals. It was rather funny to see the difference between the signs used. On all the other animal enclosures, the sign was along the lines of : Red Bear (Ursus reddus) - Found only in south-east Asia, these bears live in community groups of six, hunting in packs. Their diet is mainly berries and grubs, but they will also attack deer and pigs if other food sources get low.

On the farm animal enclosures, the sign just showed a cartoon picture of the animal and said simply : Cow.

From there, we went and watched a demonstration of various birds of prey, which was quite interesting, and just as it finished, the skies opened, and the rain poured down. We decided we’d seen as much as we wanted to see anyway, so headed for the ferry and went back across the water to Circular Quay.

By this time, we were getting quite hungry, so we went to find some lunch. We knew it would be expensive to purchase food near the Quay, due to the proximity of such a huge tourist market, but we did not realise quite how expensive. We thought we’d just grab a pie for lunch, something simple. A pie retails in that area of town for $9-$10 each. Frankly, that was just ridiculously out of our budget, so we kept walking a block or so, then found a pub serving a plate of roast meat and vegetables for $10. Gosh - for $10 would we buy a pie? Or a roast dinner? No contest, and soon we tucked into a hearty plate of roast meat that was just perfect on a cold, wet day.

After lunch, we decided that it was time to make up for our last travel to Sydney, when we tried to get to the Sydney Harbour Bridge museum, but failed to get there because we took the wrong road. Once again, we took the wrong road. This time though, we simply asked directions, and got back on course.

The museum was actually rather disappointing. Like everything else in Sydney, it was under construction, but they were not going to be ready to open it until November or December at least. The entry price of $3.00 per person gave entry to the pylon lookout, and entry to the museum. Since it was not open, they were offering complimentary tickets to be used when we came back in December. We have no intention of going back in December, so asked if there was a cheaper price to just walk up the stairs and go to the pylon lookout, but there wasn’t. I imagine that they get asked that a lot by disgruntled visitors, but after walking all the way to the pylon, then up several flights of dark stairs, they figure nobody is going to stop 50 steps from the top for the sake of $3. It was rather irritating though, to have to pay for entry to a museum that does not currently exist.

Climbing up to the top of the pylon lookout, we huddled inside for a few moments due the pouring rain. From the room, we could see the suckers who’d paid about $110 each to climb up the arch of the bridge, and were getting absolutely drowned, with no hope of seeing the city for the rain and clouds. The wind was also very strong, so we decided none of them would really be thinking it was a good use of that much money.

After the rain stopped, we went out on the lookout and took a couple of photos before the cold wind made us go back inside once more. Downstairs in the foyer, we sat and watched a video of the construction work of the bridge which was quite interesting, but it had a terrible soundtrack. There was the original footage, introduced by a clear speaking narrator, then it cut to the reminisces of a fellow who was a supervisor on the bridge work back in the 1930’s. Aged in his late seventies when he did the recording, it sounded as though they’d got him to speak into a cardboard tube, at a distance of a kilometre away, underwater, with a mouth full of marbles. It was completely unintelligible, and we soon gave up.

Walking across the rest of the bridge, we went down to Luna Park to have a look, but it was closed. We had a desire to take another ferry ride, so we jumped on a bus to the only place we knew of a ferry stopping - Mosman Bay. After 30 minutes bus ride, we arrived at Mosman Bay, only to see the ferry just pulling out. Fortunately, we only had to wait 15 minutes for the next one, and we zipped back across the water to Circular Quay once more. Since it was almost dark by then, we decided to jump on the next ferry, and use it to cruise around and see the lights of the city, rather than pay an extra $20 each and go on a special cruise that would go past pretty much all the stuff we’d passed during the day.

Catching the next ferry to Rydlemere, we found out that the first stop was actually Milson’s Point, right next to Luna Park. We had literally been standing on the very wharf that the ferry pulled up to, but didn’t realise it was a stop at the time, due to the sign saying “private wharf”. Felt a bit stupid for taking a bus to a ferry when we’d been standing at a ferry stop, but such is life. We did get to see a bit more of the city than we would have otherwise.

The ferry was almost empty on the way to Rydlemere, but we stood out the front of the boat, on deck, since inside felt just like a bus, whereas standing on deck gave a much better view, and appreciation that we were on a ferry. Of course, being such a cold day, riding across water, into a cold wind, with a few flicks of rain still falling, it was abso-bloody-lutely freezing out there, and we were chilled to the core. Still, it was interesting. On the way there, Trav had been talking to the fellow responsible for putting the gangplank out to the wharf, and on the way back, since we were the only passengers, he offered to show us the area of the ferry out the back for crew only. It was quite interesting to see the size of the engines used to power the ferry, as well as the two 2500 litre fuel tanks. Okay, so maybe it sounds dull to some people, but it was somewhat fascinating to see the powerhouse of the ferry.

A bite of dinner was had at a restaurant on the Quay, which seemed confused about what sort of place it was. On the one hand, they had a number of waiters scurrying about, fetching drinks, happy to attend to your every need. On the other hand, the food was presented in large trays, and once you’d made your selection, they served it up on a plate, then popped it into a microwave behind them. It was all rather bizarre to watch what appeared to be a relatively upmarket restaurant nuking our meals like a TV dinner.

Since Sydney was, by that time, basically shut down, except for the hundreds of construction workers racing the clock before the Olympics, we went back to the hotel, and relaxed at the end of the day with a bit of television.

Categories: Travel, Sydney 2000