Sydney Day 2: Tiny Zoo

My second day in Sydney was mostly spent in the office, doing actual work, participating in an actual internal summit.  It was pretty great.  But at the end of the day, at 4pm -- just an hour before sunset -- a few of us from the office went to visit a tiny zoo nearby.  Remember that this is July, the dead of winter, when days are shortest.  Apparently this means the zoo was nearly empty as well.  The few of us were (nearly) the only ones there.

Here was our crew, outside the zoo.

Of course we got to see some Tazmanian Devils.  They're cute little weasels that actually spin around constantly, just like a cat chasing its tail.  Kind of odd -- they spin around a bit, then move a few feet forward, then spin again.  Really unclear why.

Finally we got to the Koalas.

I mean, there's nothing more stereotypical, and Australia really hypes them up to tourists.  They're everywhere out in rural areas -- sort of like the way we have squirrels in our trees in North America.  The thing is, they get so few calories from the eucalyptus leaves they eat that they basically need to sleep 21 hours per day.  Pretty much any time you see one in a zoo, it's up in a treetop looking like this:

Most zoo attendees sort of sigh and walk by, clearly disappointed that there wasn't more to see.

But we were lucky!  Somehow this koala woke up just as we arrived, right as the sun was setting, and decided to climb over to three right by the cage glass window -- about a foot from us -- and start eating away.  We got all excited.  And then its baby climbed out of its pouch and started eating too.  It was super-awkward, trying to crawl all over its mom, step on her head, grab leaves, and then almost fall off her parent.  The zookeeper told us were crazy-lucky to see all this, and that the baby was only 6 months old and had only very recently learned to even venture outside its pouch.

Here's my mommy-baby shot for National Geographic:

Of course the zoo had some other cool animals, like little wallabys we could pet.

...and an enormous crocodile you could basically crawl underneath, given the shape of the glass tank.  Good thing it was sleeping.

Eventually the zoo closed and they politely booted us out, just in time to catch an orange sunset over the nearby harbor.