Australia = Kangaroos and Koalas. Right? Yup. Off to the Zoo we go.

Taronga Zoo is the city zoo in Sydney. It’s across the harbor so a ferry ride or a taxi across the bridge are required. We took the Captain Cook cruise line, and paid the additional charge to be able to ride the ferry all day. The full day trip gave us access to many stops along the Captain Cook route including Luna Park.

The Zoo was very big and a little hard to navigate, but the amount of cool animals made up for all the challenges. This Zoo has an opportunity to do just that, at no extra charge.

I had my heart set on snuggling a koala, but the koala experience at this zoo is a first-come-first-serve for the koala encounters and the appointment times were full by the time we showed up that day. No worries, you still get a pretty close up look at these sleepy creatures and the rest of the zoo provides plenty of entertainment.

One of our favorite parts of the zoo was the nocturnal animal house. Here are many small rodents that hop like kangaroos, spotted bush creatures, and vampire bats. In case you are curious, the vampire bats at the zoo are fed dead chicks. We happened to be there at feeding time and yikes.

After the zoo we took advantage of our full-day ferry pass and stopped off at Luna Park across the harbor from the bridge and Opera House. Luna Park is an old, still open except on Tuesdays, amusement park with really beautiful views of the classic (surprise…more pictures of the Opera House and the Bridge) Sydney harbor sights. We loved this little stop and would suggest it to all visitors.