Considering it got up to 36 degrees Monday, Tuesday it was bloody freezing. At least for the morning anyway. We all surfaced and were on the move by 830am, dressed for sunshine and heat. It was three busses to Taronga zoo and each time we got off, we huddled together like penguins to keep warm. The weather in Australia has changed quicker than back home! We got to the zoo, got our tickets and headed to get a cup of tea and coffee. By now it was starting to warm up and it was hot in the sun!Don’t be fooled by the clear blue skies above! The wind was the cold part! Monday night saw the wind suddenly start and we had to get our makeshift sun loungers in so they didn’t get wet or blown away. It was blowing a hooley. We started our visit at the cable car, thinking we could get it to the other end of the park then we walk back.

Wrong!!! The woman at the exit must have thought we were right idiots when we said we weren’t leaving the park we wanted to walk back. She suggested we stayed on and went back to the beginning to save us trekking up mountain-like hills to get back into the park. Can’t fault the views though.Don’t think they liked it when I stood up to take photos and the whole car moved! Once our feet were firmly back on the ground we were greeted by a peacock going mad at its own reflection.Needless to say we gave it a wide berth. I dislike peacocks on a normal day, let alone when ones having a meltdown in front of a mirror! And thus began our tour of the zoo…We passed a huge white pelican on our way to the cute chubby wombat.Trying to take a photo of the platypus proved impossible as it didn’t stay still at all. I didn’t realise how small they were either as he darted about in his pool! I mean that is just a great photo! Next up we’re my favourite.The koalas were so cute! I can relate to them sleeping 23 hours a day and only waking to eat. Sounds delightful! They were just sat chilling in the trees. Hopefully we can see them in the wild on our travels here! We then walked through an enclosure with wallabies jumping about and huge emus.There didn’t seem to be much energy from the animals in the zoo, most of them were just chilling.The Zoo is right by the water so throughout it we caught beautiful views of the Sydney skyline. The Tasmanian devils were asleep.The kangaroos weren’t even bouncing. Lazy buggers! Then it was on to the seal lions (or seals I still can never remember the difference) and penguins. The penguins were more than happy to pose and there was a huge male seal /sea lion rolling around in its enclosure. There was a huge freshwater crocodile who approached the glass as we walked up to it. He was massive and I’m pretty sure he was checking us out for lunch. I nominated Nathan to be his food!He was a beast! They had Andean condors and Pygmy hippos too!Next up would be the tigers. We wanted just to see them but they have this thing called ‘tiger trek’ which talks about conservation as there’s only 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild. Once you’ve watched the video you enter the tiger enclosure where there were two beautiful Sumatran tigers.They were majestic. Sadly, our time in the tiger enclosure was laced with pain as a kid ran over mums foot and ripped up her big toenail. I mean it was at a ninety degree angle and bleeding. How the kid managed it is beyond me but there we were, tending to Mum whilst Claire went and got a first aider. Good job it wasn’t serious as the first aider did take a while to come. Meanwhile we were enjoying the stories the kids were coming up with about why Mum was bleeding, our favourite being that “she had her toe bitten by the tiger.” Bless. The first aider didn’t have a clue what to do so my brother pushed mums nail back on and the guy dressed it, leaving Mum to hobble round the rest of the zoo. Luckily it was towards the end. There are so many viewpoints throughout the park of the city skyline. One of my favourites was by the giraffe enclosure.The giraffes had a perfect view of all things Sydney! There was a viewpoint just behind the enclosure too.It was beautiful. The sun had come out, the wind had died down and the day was delightful. There was even a baby elephant who had been born in May.We exited the zoo past the hoards of school kids and waited for our busses back to Birchgrove. Once there, we regrouped and decided to head back out into the city to see it in all its glory at night time. It was much cooler and we got the circular quay in time to watch the sunset.There were loads of people sat watching the sunset and photographs had come out in the dozens with their tripods, eagerly awaiting the sky to fill with colours and the opera house to light up. The sun has set and the lights on the bridge and in the city switched on. The Sydney Opera House turned 44 years old a couple of weeks back. Launched in June this year, Badu Gili (water, light) is the language of the first owners of Bennelong. Their history is demonstrated by a seven minute light show on the side of the Opera House at sunset and 9pm. It was mesmerising, once we actually figured out where the lights were showing. Up on the platform will be where we stand next time.

Until then…