Taronga Zoo has been delighting the citizens of Sydney for many decades and it was to this place that my brother and I journeyed to next. The day began very well and it was easy to see that it would be a scorcher. Even before the sun reached its zenith, the air was hot, but the sky was cloudless meaning a beautiful day ahead. I had always meant to go but never really found the right time. My parents had been there and said it was quite nice so I figured now was as good a time as any to see it.
The best way, or at least the most interesting, to reach Taronga Zoo is by ferry. My brother and I arrived at Circular Quay station and then boarded a ferry. The ferry to Taronga Zoo takes you behind the Opera House and offers some spectacular views of the city. We disembarked about 15 minutes later at the wharf and made our way to the lower entrance. Taronga Zoo sits on a hill and there is an upper entrance with a parking lot at the top.
The zoo is divided into several broad areas, roughly corresponding to the world's geography. There are Australian, Asian, Antarctic and African sections, plus a few areas dedicated to specific types of animals, such as insects, spiders and birds. My brother and I, spending pretty much the whole day there, wandered through every section. Some animals you are allowed to be photographed with if you are willing to pay an extra AUS$20, but that's expensive in my opinion. We saw lions, and tigers and bears, oh my! We also saw koalas, monkeys. seals, penguins, a red panda, elephants, giraffes, kangaroos, wallabies, goats, zebras, emus, birds, bats, wombats and spiders.
On that last item, spiders, I actually went to the spider sanctuary for a demonstration about Australia's spiders. Australia's spiders are the most venomous in the world but they are not aggressive and will only bite if provoked. However, since the development of various anti-venins, about 30 years ago, there haven't been any deaths from the 2 most poisonous spiders: the redback and the Sydney funnelweb. Both of these were shown in the demonstration.
The redback is a lot like the black widow in that most species have a red hourglass mark on the abdomen. They are quite common though they tend to hide in places that humans don't normally disturb, such as the back of the fridge or in an old shed. If you are bitten, it'll hurt for a while but serious symptoms won't develop for some time; you should still get checked out, though.
The Sydney funnelweb is the most venomous spider in the world, though ironically the venom only affects primates. This is a bizarre evolutionary coincidence since there are no native primates in Australia. It's just bad luck that humans are so greatly affected. Unlike the redback, a bite from a funnelweb will cause immediate pain and other symptoms like shortness of breath. If left untreated it can be fatal, but like I said, no one has died for 30 years. The funnelweb, the male of the species being the most venomous, lives exclusively in the Sydney area and for 150 km around, putting some 5 000 000 people within the territory of this spider. It's almost too funny that humans have settled predominantly in the territory of the spider most likely to kill them. The demonstration lasted about 30 minutes and I spent the whole time sitting under the blazing sun.
By this time it was late afternoon so my brother and I decided to quickly finish off the portions of the zoo we hadn't seen. We left at about 17:00 and caught the ferry back to Circular Quay. My brother continued on to Dulwich while I stayed and caught up with a friend from camp, Tayissa Barone; that's bah-ROHW-nee not bah-ROHWN like the clan in Everybody Love's Raymond. After a quick drink in a pub in The Rocks, an old area of Sydney just adjacent to Circular Quay, I returned to Dulwich Hill to the sounds of Elves slaying Orcs.
No comments:
Post a Comment