Taronga Zoo - the return!

Even though I had a sore knee I still had to go to Sydney Zoo which is on the other side of the harbour. in 2000 I came to Austrlia on a whirlwind tour for 4 weeks. One of the things I did while in Sydney was go to the zoo. I thought it was quite a good set up until I arrived at the elephant enclosure. It was there that I witnessed one of the elephants pacing back and forward. It was obviously stir crazy. I stayed watching it for nearly 20 minutes - it was a very harrowing thing to watch.

So, not because I wanted to but because I had to I caught the ferry back to Taronga zoo. I got the cable car up to the top of the zoo and started making my way down to the bottom looking at all the different enclosures on the way. Some of the animals had really large settings - especially the apes. But some of the enclosures were still just glorified cages. The elephant enclosure still looked too small but at least the elephants looked sane. I read about all the things they did to try to keep them amused - games and baths and hiding their food so that they had to search for it.

I was going to give the zoo a tentive thumbs up for being on the whole good - until I got to the tiger enclosure.

There I seen their single tiger pacing up and down in front of its encloure. I took a video but its too long to place on the blog - it would take a day to download!

While there are animals in this state in zoos I will never be a fan of them. With all the tv programs there are today and the information you can get at the click of a finger through the internet I no longer see the need for zoos that have animals purely to amuse the public.

caged desert fox

Australian Museum

OK I have been persuaded to continue the blog - My friend Gavin gave a good argument in that the more time I spend doing the blog the this time I spend drinking so I am in fact saving money by doing it! As I won't be making any money from it anymore I can be as un PC as I want now and tell it how it is. I'll try to keep it as near as possible to the way it was.

Anyway here's an unfunny post:

As it was just round the corner and as it was raining on my first full day in Sydney I decided to go to the Australian Museum. Its basically a natural history museum complete with lots of stuffed animals - mostly Australian birds. They also had the usual boring mineral exhibition and of course a dinosaur display.

There was a whole section of the museum dedicated to the indigenous people of Australia (indigenous rather than aboriginal due to the inclusion of the Torres island people). It had the usual display cases of artifacts and talked quite a lot about "the dreaming".

One exhibit stood out because if was quite upsetting - the Australian protection board part. It was set out as a sort of maze of paintings and told about the forced taking of aboriginal children so that they could be educated to be more like whites. I knew about some of the atrocities done by the white settlers to the aboriginals but I thought that this was particularly shameful. I took some pics of the exhibition - its easier than writing things down (you may need to zoom in on the photos)









And on a lighter note - here is DM fighting with a velociraptar - bad DM!

Knee's are bad

Some bad news. While doing the conservation work last week in Perth I somehow managed to damage my right knee which is now hurting like hell - especially when I climb any steps. Of course my room in my hostel would just happen to be on the 3rd floor!

I intend to try to rest my knee for the next 3 days and do as little walking as possible. If it does not get any better then its off to the doctor.

As for the blog - the decision is still out - I will let you know in a couple of days. If the knee does not improve then the whole trip might be off anyway!