Sydney Tower and Wildlife World

Saturday P-Days are great. It gives us a chance to explore the wonderful city in which we live. Today we spent our time at the Sydney Tower, which is like the Space Needle in Seattle. It rises above Sydney from a huge mall in the middle of downtown. We took the ferry to Circular Quay and then the bus. As the driver told us where to get off, we looked up, saw the tower but no entrance. As we approached the entrance to the mall we saw signs that said the entrance to the tower was two levels up.

The view from the Tower is spectacular. The day was clear, the skies were brilliant blue and you could see for miles in every direction. There is a restaurant on top that serves a buffet lunch and dinner for the price of $46-$66 Aus. It is supposed to be very good. We opted the "cheap" lunch at the snack area which cost $25 Aus!!!



This picture shows the view of Darling Harbor and the path of the Parramatta River which winds to the right of the picture, towards the middle and the top. That is the direction in which we live. The ferry we take to downtown comes right down that river. We live 30 mintues away by ferry.

After lunch we walked 5 or 6 blocks to Darling Harbor where we visited Wildlife World. It is basically an indoor zoo of Australian animals, snakes, spiders, butterflies, lizards and birds. The koalas were our favorite. The snakes were pretty scary. Of the 10 most poisonous snakes in the world Australia has 5 or 7 of them. This country has beautiful birds. I could really become a bird watcher here!

This is a cassowary. It is a very large bird and is supposed to be the most dangerous bird in the world. It looks as tall as Dad. The colors on its head are beautiful.









This is a lorakeet. They are all over the place. Very common. We see them in the mornings when we walk. They feed on the berries of the trees. Sometimes they are hard to see but when they fly out of the trees you see their beautiful brilliant green wings. This picture was taken at Wildlife World.

















I took this picture last Saturday on my walk early in the morning.





Needless to say the koala bears are the cutest of all the Australian animals. By the time we got to see them they were all asleep. We had been told that they get drunk on the Eucalyptus leaves that they eat. Apparently that is not the case. The people there told us that their stomachs are very small and when they eat they have to sleep to digest their food because it takes so much energy.









Mama and baby sleeping!

Wallaby. These animals are the smaller version of the kangaroo. There were no kangaroos at the Wildlife World - only Wallabys.

These cuties are called skinks.






Hanging out with the Aborigines on Circular Quay!









Aborigines playing the didgeridoo. They really are quite a sight when they are all painted up. You can see the harbor bridge in the background. All in all it was a fun day with interesting sites.