It was an early start yesterday, on the 6:41 am train from Broadmeadow to Sydney.
As with my previous three train trips, I saw only a single Kangaroo on the trip. Once again the glimpse was fleeting and I was unable to photograph it. Here’s an artists impression:
I was in Sydney early, and after dropping my stuff at Adams set out for the city. I had an inkling to hit the shops!
I did the usual places – Kinokuniya, QVB, Pitt Street – before heading to Darling Harbour. There was something there I had to see…
It’s a 3-storey tall inflatable duck art installation, which is floated in Darling Harbour for the Sydney Festival. I’m lovin it!
As I got closer to Darling Harbour I began to see signs advertising dugongs at Sydney Aquarium. I’d never seen a dugong, so decided it was worth a look.
The cost was $38, and the first few displays were decidedly underwhelming. I’d been to this aquarium several times before and feared it may have gone off a bit.
My fears were unjustified! The displays are now themed, and it was just that the first set – Australian river fishes – were just a bit drab. As I wandered through the next I was treated to a kelp forest, a sunken ship, a steampunk themed crab and lobster display and a remarkable ray tank:
And then, the dugongs! Seeing them float around happily almost brought a year to my eye 🙂
They have two, a male and female, who have been there for three years. They are two of the only six dugongs (a south pacific relative of the manatee) in captivity in the world. They eat 50 kg of lettuce each a day!
They are in one of the giant walk-through tanks at the aquarium, which are submerged under the water level of the Harbour.
It’s a very peaceful and special way to see the animals.
There is a mural painted on the walls of the ramp leading down to the bottom of the dugong tank. It details one aspect of man’s history with these beasts:
Sailors jump from a ship pursuing a lovely mermaid…
But mermaids don’t exist and it’s a dugong!
But then later on we discover there is a real mermaid after all 🙂
Fancy a real dugong? Well that would be difficult, but the shop sells the next best thing:
There wasn’t a price tag 🙂
Overall the aquarium was spectacular, and I’m very pleased I visited.
Changing tack a bit, the above is ‘Dark Escape 4D’, a new light gun shooter I played (for $4 a go!) The game is in 3D (you wear glasses) and has a moving seat, an air gun that blasts your face and even a pulse sensor in the gun handle that makes the gun fail if you panic! It *is* a scary game (you sit enclosed in a dark room), but it’s a bit slow for my taste.
I wandered over to The Star casino, where I would boggle at the variety of machines and how geared to Chinese Tourists they have become. $10 of my hard earned dollars went – in equal portions – into the paired games Ice Horse and Fire Horse, mostly because I was attracted by the pretty fantasy horses galloping through the videos 🙂
A bit later I visited an Uggs shop in which no employees seemed to speak English. Do you think Chinese tourists buy a lot of Uggs:
I wasn’t there for the shoes though. A stuffed animal had caught my eye:
Yes it’s real fur, but the price tag scared me away! Will I return?
Two more photos to end this epic post. First, a magazine from 1990 I bought at a comic store:
And lastly, this…
