Roaring, Snoring and Driving
Friday, November 12, 2010
We picked up our pretty new car (you’ll meet her later) and headed across the Sydney Harbour Bridge (thrice) to Sydney’s Taronga Zoo. The zoo offers an overnight package called “Roar ‘n Snore” which involves a night safari, close encounters with some of the animals, sleeping in a fancy tent overlooking the Harbour Bridge and Opera house, lots of amazing food and to top it off we got to spend the next day at the zoo.
A little out of a typical backpackers budget but we thought we’d spoil ourselves this once to go behind the scenes at the zoo. It all started with a wander through the zoo before dark to get to our tents. These are no ordinary tents, they have fancy beds inside (made of rubber?) and shared bathroom facilities which were better than a 5* hotel! Actually got to shower looking over Sydney Harbour! We were greeted with beer, wine, cheese and lots of nibbles as well as a few snakes and lizards. We then went on to our buffet dinner (even though we’d scoffed all the cheese) which was excellent and headed for our night safari. This gives us a chance to see some of the animals come to life at night. We were lucky to see the snow leopards right up at the fence as wells as some crocs, a komodo dragon, some sleeping lions, red pandas, tahrs (or mountain goats) and loads more. We then went back to camp for more food, this time caramel slices, brownies and coffee and tea (yum!). Lights out at 11ish as it was an early start for our close encounters the next day.
Our continental breakfast in the morning was great, cereals danishes, fruit, juices and tea/coffee, really feeling spoiled now as we went off to meet the giraffes. We walked in the paddock and got to feed them some carrots. Their tongues were pretty slippery and very long so there was a technique but it was a lot of fun! We then headed off to the nocturnal house to get a talk about feeding the animals and got to hold the smallest glider in the world; the feather tailed glider. It was so small but so cute! Next we headed to the education centre where we got up close with kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, possums and quokkas. These had all be hand rescued and hand reared at the zoo so loved attention from humans. Unfortunately it is illegal to hold koalas so we only got to stroke it, but he was cute! That was roar and snore over and it was amazing. We got the whole day in the zoo, which was great early in the morning as it was really quiet so we got to see everything from wombats, emus, kangaroos to elephants and their 3 babies at bath-time, and the tiger at feeding time. There was a seal show and a bird show which were great and that was our Taronga Zoo experience.. Amazing! (more pics on the "Going Solo" album on the signpost).
When we picked up our car we were told to give it a bit of a test drive to make sure we were happy so we took her for a spin to the Blue Mountains, just over an hour away from Sydney. We stopped off at Ikea to buy the basics for sleeping in the car; pillow etc and headed for Katoomba. We decided to check into a campsite so we could ease into the camping on the road and we were spoiled with a kitchen and great bathroom facilities. We settled into our nice new bed (in the back of the car) and had a great night sleep.
The next morning we headed off for a walk to the mountains and Katoomba town. Katoomba is set at the top of the mountains on a plateau so the walk we went on was on the cliffs (so no climbing was involved). Ended up at Echo Point, the best place to view the three sisters (3 rocks) for some photos. The Blue Mountains are like a green (or blue) version of the Grand Canyon; spectacular and named for the eucalyptus oil which evaporates to give them a bluish tinge, theses trees cover the mountain range. We then went to Katoomba for a few more essentials for our car; camp-chairs and storage boxes, surfed the internet for a bit to find out that I’d won $1000 towards a training agriculture program which guarantees employment in Australia. This was something we entered at the travellers expo in Sydney but not something we planned on doing. We have over a year to use the voucher so that might mean having to come back with a working holiday visa (if Taylor can get one too) and work on a farm! Celebrated with a sneaky dominos pizza and a bottle of wine and enjoyed the sunset over our campsite.
So now the car has been test driven and has passed the overnight test she can be welcomed into our travelling duo and you can meet her. She’s a 1998 Ford Falcon Forte automatic station wagon in burgundy, her lock is a bit rubbish but that’s her only fault. We've named her Shelly.. Sheila was a popular choice on Facebook but that's my mums name and I don't want to offend.. so we've decided on Shelly. It’s her first time as a backpackers car so we’re slowly going to get all the camping gear for our trip and she should hopefully get us from Sydney to Cairns then across to Alice Springs and end in Melbourne in a couple of months and still be fit enough for another backpacker to take her on!
Our continental breakfast in the morning was great, cereals danishes, fruit, juices and tea/coffee, really feeling spoiled now as we went off to meet the giraffes. We walked in the paddock and got to feed them some carrots. Their tongues were pretty slippery and very long so there was a technique but it was a lot of fun! We then headed off to the nocturnal house to get a talk about feeding the animals and got to hold the smallest glider in the world; the feather tailed glider. It was so small but so cute! Next we headed to the education centre where we got up close with kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, possums and quokkas. These had all be hand rescued and hand reared at the zoo so loved attention from humans. Unfortunately it is illegal to hold koalas so we only got to stroke it, but he was cute! That was roar and snore over and it was amazing. We got the whole day in the zoo, which was great early in the morning as it was really quiet so we got to see everything from wombats, emus, kangaroos to elephants and their 3 babies at bath-time, and the tiger at feeding time. There was a seal show and a bird show which were great and that was our Taronga Zoo experience.. Amazing! (more pics on the "Going Solo" album on the signpost).
When we picked up our car we were told to give it a bit of a test drive to make sure we were happy so we took her for a spin to the Blue Mountains, just over an hour away from Sydney. We stopped off at Ikea to buy the basics for sleeping in the car; pillow etc and headed for Katoomba. We decided to check into a campsite so we could ease into the camping on the road and we were spoiled with a kitchen and great bathroom facilities. We settled into our nice new bed (in the back of the car) and had a great night sleep.The next morning we headed off for a walk to the mountains and Katoomba town. Katoomba is set at the top of the mountains on a plateau so the walk we went on was on the cliffs (so no climbing was involved). Ended up at Echo Point, the best place to view the three sisters (3 rocks) for some photos. The Blue Mountains are like a green (or blue) version of the Grand Canyon; spectacular and named for the eucalyptus oil which evaporates to give them a bluish tinge, theses trees cover the mountain range. We then went to Katoomba for a few more essentials for our car; camp-chairs and storage boxes, surfed the internet for a bit to find out that I’d won $1000 towards a training agriculture program which guarantees employment in Australia. This was something we entered at the travellers expo in Sydney but not something we planned on doing. We have over a year to use the voucher so that might mean having to come back with a working holiday visa (if Taylor can get one too) and work on a farm! Celebrated with a sneaky dominos pizza and a bottle of wine and enjoyed the sunset over our campsite.
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