Lions and Tigers and Bears....(oh no! I missed the Tiger!)

After two Warners Bay based weekends, we were excited to get back on the road again. A short 90 minute drive to Hornsby was made to feel even shorter courtsey of Ian sending us a compilation tape of various happening (Embrace/ Robbie Williams) and not so happening (Rolf Harris) tunes from back home. The final destination was to Chris and Richard's house; fellow exchangees who we had entertained 3 months before. After settling in nicely on Friday evening we awoke to gorgeous Winter Sunshine and impressive views of bushland and creeks at the bottom of their garden.
The itinerary today was Taronga Zoo, which to me looked like a 20 minute cruise down the Pacific highway. I suggested taking Cars, nobody turned around and said don't be a fool but
90 minutes after crawling through the outskirts of Sydney they probably wished they had. Anyway we got there in the end, I was forgiven (I think) and we had a great day.
Tina's Lion encounter was quite impressive, she had to push several small children out of the way to get the shot below but it was worth it. She would have you believe that this was a face to face encounter and there isn't really 3cm of reinforced glass between her and certain death. I was just waiting for it to stand up and say "Welcome Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve."



Our Gorilla shots were not so impressive so here are the kids, mobbing the model ones striking poses like a U2 album cover.















No tigers (well there were but Tina forgot to see them) so here's the bear. Striking a similar "I'm bored you look delicious" expression to the lion.
















One of the highlights of Taronga Zoo in case you were not aware is the location, overlooking Sydney Harbour, the bridge and the Opera House. to admire the view we rode on the "Sky Safari" about four times. Judging by Jessica's face this was the fourth time.

















The Zoo with a view they call it. You'd think the Girafffes would appreciate it more than most but they were more into stepping on the Zebras and licking each others ears with their scaringly long blue tongues.















Any other outlook though paled into insignificance when we sat down to see the bird show. Great show, fantastic backdrop. We did have a picture of 100 birds in perfect formation spelling out "Welcome to Sydney" but Tina insisted we put her "Peregrine Falcon in Silhouette" shot on the Blog instead.















So what was the highlight? Definitely the birds for the adults. The children disagreed. They preferred the Chimpanzees. Their antics amused them none more so than the "Chud chewing"
Chimp pictured below, who passed the time sticking its finger in certain places, getting some motion going, catching the end result and chomping it up cheerfully . Please excuse my over use of alliteration, I couldn't resist it. Neither could the chimp resist licking the remnants. Neither could Alex resist writing about it in his News on Monday.