I Met a Koala!!

Finally! A real live koala and I make friends. This one's name is Carla, and she is a resident of the Taronga Zoo in Sydney. The Taronga Zoo offers a "Koala Encounters" where tourists can take photos and have a interpersonal-marsupial meeting. Carla may look like she is taking a nap, but she is just so excited about meeting us she had to take a moment to let it all settle in.

The Taronga Zoo was amazing - the animals looked well loved, and were provided with some well maintained areas. We also saw a GI-NORMOUS komodo dragon, giraffes, lions, zebras, gorillas and orangutans, but the red pandas were just hiding way too well. Some of the best views of Sydney were from the ferry on the ride across the harbor to the zoo, and from the giraffe pen. Go figure.

If you haven't already put two and two together, we visited Sydney this past weekend. Although there are plans to stay in Sydney on our road trip down the east coast of Australia after the program wraps up in April, we wanted to get in a visit while the weather was nice. Thus, we booked rooms at the Bondi Beach Hotel, and jumped on a sunrise plane on Friday morning (very nearly missed our flight thanks to a triple alarm clock malfunction on my, Jay's and Josh's part... packing in 10 minutes flat is an accomplishment, lemme tellya). Bondi Beach is an incredibly beautiful beach near downtown Sydney, which has a great summertime atmosphere. We all definitely got our tans on.

Here is Josh checking out the Sydney skyline from the ferry. Obviously, I hope, you will recognize the Opera House over there.

This is a view of one of the many bays along a coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee Beaches. Josh, Jay and I did the very long walk within a few hours of landing in Sydney so that we could have brunch at Aroma cafe in Coogee.

Here is it! A picture of a giraffe attempting to snack on the Sydney Opera House. Just kidding! It's perspective playing jokes on you!