It has poured every day since we got here, with the most rain that Sydney has seen for years (apparently a month's rain has fallen in a week). So, what better thing to do than go to the Zoo?Taronga zoo overlooks Sydney harbour and on a clear day, probably the views are breathtaking. We were just grateful for a let-up of the downpour and made our way to the Koalas and Wallabies as a first stop. Koalas are not bears but marsupials - a surprise to us - and they sleep for 20 hours per day (nice life, huh?). They live on Eucalypt plants, which is very difficult to digest, hence they sleep so long, and sure enough the two Koalas they
took us to have our picture taken with were well-asleep. They are beautiful little things and you just want to give them a big hug, but it seems they get no comfort from being petted and it just disturbs them.The wallabies were, amazingly, wandering around in an open part of the zoo. We asked about this and the staff explained that they are reared by humans so are very used to being around people. We also later got a real treat - one small mother kangaroo had its baby (called a Joey) in its pouch and I filmed what looked like the Joey grooming the mother. It was absolutely mesmerising.
The Seal show was great fun - I haven't seen something like that since being a child! - and when the well-trained seals launched themselves out of the water, the kids were roaring with joy - me among them...After being terrorised by small multi-coloured parro
ts at lunch (one of which was so ballsy it waltzed up and took a bite out of Nicki's carrot cake as she was trying to get a pic of it), we watched a baby elephant and its mother playing in the water. More menacingly, we also saw the crocodiles and were re-assured by the statistic that they are not as quick as the stereotype. I've always believed that they are faster than a human but they can 'only' reach speeds of 12-14km. So if you're ever pursued by a croc, run like hell and you'll be fine... Then we found the 
fantastic Small Penguins swimming around (if you've seen the animated movie, Surf's Up, you'll recognise these cute little things swishing around in the water).Nicki was moved by the Gorillas and Chimpanzees, so human-like in their interactions with each other - it almost seemed two chimpanzees were kissing... My worst
part of the visit was the spiders - it makes my skin crawl to see these great big things that roam around this country. It didn't help when we got back to the hotel and Nicki said "I think that was a Redback crawling underneath our window". Just great, I'd rather not know it was there. We did read that in a year, spiders eat the weight of the whole world's human population in moths, flies and other insects, so at least they are good for something...It was a big surprise to enjoy the zoo and with the animals so free and easy with the people, it made for a completely different experience compared to our childhood memories. Plus, seeing Koalas, Kangaroos and huge spiders certainly gave it a unique feel.
Footnote - we heard a fantastic radio advert today on Aussie radio. "imagine if you started eating a meat pie and after two bites, you were full! Imagine if the same thing happened in bed too! To improve your in-bed performance and ensure you make the final hooter, call now on..." Informal is the name of the game here in Australia...
