Our World Congress of Herpetology adventure

[Dmmetler]

I figured I might as well put all the notes and updates in one place, even though this part of the trip is less official :).

 

We’ve made it to Sydney, Australia. The Air NZ flight from Houston was like the best behaved, quietest band bus trip I’ve ever been on. Unlike most US flights, no one was there ready to walk off the plane and work, and honestly, no one seemed to be trying to work. Yoga pants, sweat suits, and outright pajamas ruled the day. We got on the plane, had a nice dinner (and DD discovered that there is a real advantage to requesting a vegetarian meal-you get yours first), watched movies, chatted awhile, and then went to sleep. We got some advice on what times of day to look for lizards from a veterinary student returning from New Mexico to spend Christmas with her family in Christchurch. She did her undergrad at Otago. DD and I had a sky couch, which means that you get three seats with foot rests that fill in the gap, for two people. Maybe some people can handle lying lengthwise on them together, but that didn’t work so well, so we mostly ended up curled up on each end, which  leads to some interesting muscle cramps the next day. According to DD, the Auckland airport is full of Chatot Pokémon, and has working WiFi (at least at 5:00 in the morning)-even with less than a hour transfer, she found a few. 

We made to to Sydney just after a morning rain, which was well appreciated, and seems to have cleared the smoke nicely-it’s beautiful, not too hot, and nice. We had some time to spend, so wandered through a park, got lunch, and got some groceries, and then found our house, which is an older one right on a river. Very open, lots of windows. And lots of birds, spiders,  insects, and a sighting of a lizard even in the evening. It should be a beautiful home base. 

Not a bad first day at all. 

 

 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

Welcome to Australia!!

You've met your first ibis, I see 🙂

I look forward to hearing about all of your adventures here.

[Guest]

So far today we've just wandered around the area by our house. Lots of skinks, ranging from tiny to pretty big, plus this handsome fellow. 

 

[Guest]

I now know what the fuss is about Kindereggs. These things are adorable! 

[Rosie_0801]

The Sydney zoo has Komodo dragons. That totally made my life when I took my kids there.

[Guest]

Taronga or the new one? We decided everyone was too tired to attempt Taronga today (and I'd expected to not do much on Christmas and give us a chance to recover anyway), but I'm not sure we have enough time for both. 

[Rosie_0801]

Taronga, when I was there. I didn't know there was a new one. I guess their websites would say.

 

Get yourself some fair dinkum Tim Tams while you're here too. 

[Guest]

Day 2 trip report- we stayed close to the house on Christmas, since almost everything was closed. Early in the day (and I do mean early-a result of an 18 hour time zone change was that sleeping until noon turned into sleep until 6:00 even for the night owls) we went out and explored the area. We are between a river and a bay, and there are lots of little reserve and Parks, leading to a National Park. Many, many skinks and other small, quick lizards who pretty much all resolve to "Australian Blur lizard" and an equal number of various "Australian Blur birds", although we did see a lot of nice magpies (and yes, they are calling this morning) and Ibis. The Eastern Water dragon that was sunning on a retaining wall above the bay was very polite at staying around (he's about half a meter,so I guess he was not at all worried).

 

In the evening, we went back to the local business district, which was mostly closed, and found an open kebab shop for dinner, and DD was able to do some of the Wednesday Pokemon raid hour with a local couple.

 

 

[Rosie_0801]

Our magpies are the world's handsomest. 

[Guest]

We saw one who was pretty obviously playing with a young child-she would step towards the bird, giggling, the bird would hop back, look at her, trill, and then repeat. If she moved back, it would hop forward, inviting her to continue the game :). I know corvids are smart, buT I didn't know they were able babysitters.

[Guest]

I also really like the food labeling here-not only made in Australia, but the percentage of Australian grown ingredients. DD likes the giant bananas and mangos. 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

I do hope you get to see some other birds here too, as well as our maggies and bin chickens 😄

[Guest]

Well, we saw lots of brush turkeys today and a kookaburra that have taken up residence in the habitats at Taronga Zoo, plus lots of Australian birds that were supposed to be there (including some nice fluffy chooks :)). And lots of other animals, too. DD focused on the herps and the Australian specific areas, since the Memphis Zoo has a nice complement of many of the other areas (and Taronga is a huge zoo-and it was rather hot today). 

There were many photobombing water dragons as well :).  And I think we photographed them all :). 

 

Taronga Zoo and University of Sydney have a master's program specifically in Zoo Conservation Education that had DD's eyes lighting up-at least right now, that is her dream job, and Taronga seems to do a better job on their displays of actively teaching about the local animals and care that needs to be taken, how to support wildlife, and how to protect humans and wildlife from each other without building fear. They also had some nice care displays for how to care for pets (including bearded dragons and phasmids), and a lot of walk through enclosures. It is easily one of the nicest, if not the nicest zoos we've visited as far as herp vivariums go. 

[Guest]

Just a few photos from today 🙂 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

@dmmetler  I'm loving your updates and your photos 😊

I do love all animals, but look at those Silkie chickens! ♥️

Have you found somewhere where you can hand-feed the kangaroos and wallabies? That's a really lovely experience, if you get the chance.

[Guest]

Day 3 trip update:

 

Taronga Zoo! I've already posted pictures, and a lot of them, but honestly, this is one of the, if not the best zoo we've ever been to when it comes to naturalistic enclosures (and often enclosures that bring the zoo visitors in with the animals (and it's obvious that people just follow rules like "stay on the paths" so they can walk among the kangaroo and emu-and the kangaroo and emu do what they like). ) Their educational displays are extremely well done, and have ridden the balance of making people aware of the wildlife, without being scared (including multiple displays about red bellied black snakes, funnel web spiders, red backed spiders, and other possibly encountered local concerns. Although I did hear two young men discussing how extremely poisonous the diamondback rattlesnake was in the reptile house (quite a bit less than that Australian snake you just talked about seeing all the time, mate!)

 

They have a master's in Conservation Education offered with University of Sydney. DD's eyes lit up a bit at that idea.

 

 

Afterwards we came back to the house, went out for local seafood (DD accepts bending her vegetarianism for low on the food chain invertebrates when they are locally caught and ethically harvested), and came back.

 

Other observations-

the Sydney CBD across the harbor is just as amazing as it appears in TV shows. Honestly, I have yet to see an ugly part of this city, and due to a lot of not being able to change Lanes in time to make turns and recalculating routes, we've been a bit afield at times.

 

I do wish there were a little less parking that blocks traffic lanes, though. Especially in the CBD, where losing a lane really hurts.

 

And Sydney is definitely not flat. At least I'm burning off some of the chocolate.

 

I love the fact that most products seem to be much more minimally packaged, and that recycling (and composting) is sorted and collected curbside-and everywhere. It is far easier to reduce or avoid using much plastic here.

 

Having said that, almost everything costs more, even after doing the mental ratio problems between Australian dollars and USD. Except for my Vegan coconut ice cream. It cost less per litre here than it does per pint in TN.

 

Christmas treats are discounted on the 26th in Australia as well. I really hope NZ doesn't consider assortments of miniature Australian candy bars to be a biohazard concern...

 

We still take pictures of every lizard we see that holds still for it. They just come bigger here.

 

Glad to know I can still identify a turkey 🙂. 

 

[Guest]

42 minutes ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

@dmmetler  I'm loving your updates and your photos 😊

I do love all animals, but look at those Silkie chickens! ♥️

Have you found somewhere where you can hand-feed the kangaroos and wallabies? That's a really lovely experience, if you get the chance.

I thought about you when I saw them :). They're in the petting zoo/pets section (which I really liked-they have a lot of really good husbandry information, and it does a good job of explaining what the zoo does as far as captive care and enrichment with animals that kids can relate to) and are free range within it. 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

I hope you're both having a marvellous time. Has the smoke cleared somewhat? Your photo across to the Opera House looks promising.

Up here it depends which way the wind is blowing. Clear one day and then we're in a blanket of NSW's smoke the next day.

[Guest]

The smoke has been pretty clear since we got here. I think the rains on the 24th/25th were just enough to settle it, although apparently didn't do much for the actual fires. DD's Pokemon buddies said it was really bad towards the end of last week. So far, it has been very nice, if a little hot (admittedly, part of that is that we came out of winter, so it's a big contrast. If we got the same temperatures in, say, May, at home, it would feel like a pleasant day.)

[Guest]

Today we went down to the CBD/Darling Harbour area. The aquarium was overcrowded, but the wild life Australia zoo was nice-it's all Australian animals, and had a lot of the reptiles DD really wanted to see. It's a lot smaller than Taronga, and, I suspect, somewhere that locals wouldn't bother going. Plus some shopping and way, way too much walking (I HURT!). I think we need to do something a little more relaxed tomorrow,for the sake of the parents! 

[Guest]

Day 4-Wild Life Sydney/Sea Life Sydney, CBD

We went to the Darling Harbor area. Except for parking a bit too far away, it's a nice place, with an amazing playground (and excercise stations that can charge your cellphone). The Sea Life Aquarium is probably a very nice aquarium, with a lot of unique species, but it was also very,very crowded with humans, and since it is designed to be a single path through, you could not easily linger. I admit I've been a bit spoiled since we usually are not at the TN aquarium or Gatlinburg one when they are super-busy.

Wild Life Sydney was wonderful. It is all Australian species (focusing on the big five) and definitely plays second fiddle to Taronga as far as zoos go,but if you're someone who wants to see many varieties of dragons, monitor lizards and pythons in the scales, plus spend long periods of time observing a salt water crocodile, it's great. The enclosures are a bit more limited than at Taronga, but are still well done. 

We then did some shopping. I had wanted to visit a Daiso Japan store since I keep hearing from music teachers who live in areas that had them that they are good places to find cute little things that are useful in lessons,so we went to Regents Place, which basically feels like they took a section of Japan and dropped it into Sydney. I found some cute things (and could have found more if I'd had more suitcase space. It is probably good that we don't have one) and DD added some Japanese candy to the stuff that will hopefully make it through customs, since she was essentially able to make her own Japan Crate for a lot less. What Regents Place didn't have was Pokemon, which surprised us a bit (since I know "sold only in Japan" means "you can buy it from a Japanese seller and have it shipped to the USA). DD's  theory is that Australia wants to protect their regionals and that the Pokemon can't pass customs. 

Except for way too much walking over too many days in a row, it was a nice day. I do hope we pick something today that is a little more contained. Meanwhile, this morning, I am getting the novel experience of doing Laundry in Australia 😆

[Guest]

Day 5-

 

We didn't do much. Originally, we'd planned to go to Bondi Beach, but the combination of a hot day and the idea that the beach was likely to be crowded, plus that everyone was still a bit tired and sore, led us to look for other options. Plus there was a Pokemon event DD wanted to do. So, we went into Lane Cove, she did Pokemon stuff with other players, and DH and I enjoyed the library, which is a really nice one (and has a bigger American history section than even a good US university research library has on Australian history). They also have maker kits, makey-makey, ozbots, etc for checkout. After that lunch, and then back to the house. We ordered Thai delivery for dinner, watered the outside plants (which the skinks seemed to appreciate as well) and watched the bats fly.

[Rosie_0801]

Yeah, the beach is nicer at dusk at this time of year.

[Guest]

Day 6-

We went down to the Royal Botanic gardens, Sydney opera house, and ended up parking at the Queen Victoria Building, which is a late 1800's building that is now a shopping centre, with some pretty interesting shops, including a gallery specializing, currently, in Dr. Seuss. We also saw a live ray swimming happily in the harbour. It's kind of neat to see fairly common plants from our part of the world as exotics-and things which are normally cossetted houseplants growing happily, and very large. And, of course, a lot more nice birds. It was a little more hazy today. I've quite enjoyed Sydney. 

Then, packing up, since we fly to Auckland this morning. 

 

 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

I hope you've all enjoyed your time here. All the best in NZ at the Congress.

[Guest]

Day 7-Auckland. 

A three hour flight, plus a 2 hour time zone change, plus airport and customs took a big part of this day. We're only here for a couple of days, which won't be enough. We also don't have a car.  Our hotel is in the CBD, right off of K'road. DD likes the availability of vegan options, and, while they were closed last night, the number of small bookstores, music stores, and vintage clothing shops. I note the number of nightclubs and similar establishments, and I suspect that she's about 5 years younger than the target audience (and I'm about 20 years too old!). It very much feels like an area you'd find near a college campus. I'll bet the Cal Poly group will love it. And it should be an awesome spot to watch fireworks tonight for New Years. 

 

This morning, I think everyone is sleeping late, so we'll see what we end up doing. 

 

[Guest]

No question there :). 

[Guest]

Tutatara! . The Kiwi were shy. 

[Guest]

I like this sign, too

[Guest]

Galapagos tortoises!

[Guest]

And other awesome birds and lizards. 

[maize]

I am enjoying your pictures!

I think your adventures prompted one of my dreams least night--it included a giant ibis, twice as tall as me...

[wintermom]

Thanks for sharing all the wonderful photos and experiences you've had! It's really exciting following your adventures.  I have a question about the Aukland road photo: There is a pink lane on the right side of an elevated highway - is that for cyclists and/or pedestrians?  I LOVE that idea. Wish we'd do more of that here, but the winters really chew up a lot of safe cycling months in Canada. 😉

I REALLY want to go to Australia and New Zealand now. It's been a dream for decades.  I love how the OP was able to combine a learning vacation with a conference. Brilliant idea! I must do that - or get my dh to try. Might get some partial funding that way! 

[chocolate-chip chooky]

4 hours ago, wintermom said:

Thanks for sharing all the wonderful photos and experiences you've had! It's really exciting following your adventures.  I have a question about the Aukland road photo: There is a pink lane on the right side of an elevated highway - is that for cyclists and/or pedestrians?  I LOVE that idea. Wish we'd do more of that here, but the winters really chew up a lot of safe cycling months in Canada. 😉

I REALLY want to go to Australia and New Zealand now. It's been a dream for decades.  I love how the OP was able to combine a learning vacation with a conference. Brilliant idea! I must do that - or get my dh to try. Might get some partial funding that way! 

Where I am in Australia, we have a lot of bicycle lanes and also bridges that are 'green bridges' ie only for pedestrians, cyclists and in some cases public transport.

[chocolate-chip chooky]

@dmmetler Did you see a kakapo? They were featured in the documentary Last Chance to See with Stephen Fry.

[Guest]

6 hours ago, wintermom said:

Thanks for sharing all the wonderful photos and experiences you've had! It's really exciting following your adventures.  I have a question about the Aukland road photo: There is a pink lane on the right side of an elevated highway - is that for cyclists and/or pedestrians?  I LOVE that idea. Wish we'd do more of that here, but the winters really chew up a lot of safe cycling months in Canada. 😉

I REALLY want to go to Australia and New Zealand now. It's been a dream for decades.  I love how the OP was able to combine a learning vacation with a conference. Brilliant idea! I must do that - or get my dh to try. Might get some partial funding that way! 

It's a pedestrian/cyclist bridge, known as the light way. There are not only dedicated cyclist lanes, but special traffic lights for cyclists in some areas of the CBD). 

 

We've combined vacations with conferences several times now (usually, if DH can come as well), or with business trips for DH. It works well if the timing works out. Homeschooling is definitely an advantage there. 

 

Day 8-

We spent the day at the Auckland zoo, which is divided by geographic locarion. Like Taronga, it has large, naturalistic enclosures and a lot of walk-through enclosures. Auckland is one of several zoos that participate heavily in breeding and reintroduction onto wildlfe refuge areas, usually smaller islands that have had predators removed, to give native species a chance to rebuild We also visited the NZ Centre for Conservation Medicine, which is the only national veterinary center of it's kind, specializing in veterinary care for at-risk species, as well as fertility of such species.

 

At night, we went into the CBD, which definitely celebrates new years in a big way (it helps it's the middle of summer. It's a lot more fun to have outdoor concerts and fireworks when the temperatures are in the high 60's at midnight). They have light shows on the sky tower and on the bridge, plus fireworks at midnight. DD quite enjoyed getting to 2020 hours before her friends did 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, chocolate-chip chooky said:

@dmmetler Did you see a kakapo? They were featured in the documentary Last Chance to See with Stephen Fry.

Yes :). The only super rare bird we didn't see was the kiwi, because they were being shy. They're one of the species Auckland specifically focuses on. 

[Lawyer&Mom]

Greetings from 2019!

[Guest]

Day 9-

We went down to the harbour. Lots of big boats, a working drawbridge (in action), and the headquarters for the NZ America's cup team. I rather wish we had more time in Auckland, although I am looking forward to Dunedin when we are back in a house vs a hotel. Very early flight this morning. 

[Guest]

Another extremely explicit sign. I don't think DD appreciated this one much 🙂

[Guest]

Australian/NZ chocolate is awesome, and some don't have anything close to a US equivalent. Turkish Delight, OTOH, is just plain weird (chocolate covered tea rose perfume?), and I have no idea why Edmund was willing to throw away everything for it. And I wish I'd bought more of the endangered animals Kindereggs in Australia, because I have yet to see them in NZ. (And the Secret life of pets is not the same).

[Guest]

Birds are everywhere. This one seems to be planning to board the plane to Christchurch 

[lewelma]

I hope you have a great time at the conference!

Unfortunately the smoke from the Australian fires is hitting the South Island.  The photos of the sky are all orange even at 10am. 

And yes, the bird come in all the time. No screens here, so if you open a window, you can have a friend.  There are always birds flying around in the grocery stores. 🙂 

[Rosie_0801]

28 minutes ago, lewelma said:

. No screens here,

 

Why not? Don't you have flies? !!

[Guest]

Something big has been here....

[Guest]

 

 

 

Our rental house has a nice garden. And a resident moggie 🙂

[Guest]

I found 5 more endangered animals Kindereggs! Maybe if I'm lucky I can find all 26 before heading back (so far, I have 10 of the toys)....for my students....yeah, that's it.....(I think DD is humoring me)

[Rosie_0801]

3 minutes ago, dmmetler said:

I found 5 more endangered animals Kindereggs! Maybe if I'm lucky I can find all 26 before heading back (so far, I have 10 of the toys)....for my students....yeah, that's it.....(I think DD is humoring me)

 

I saw some at the supermarket this arvo and thought of you!

[wintermom]

Wow!! Look at those roses and flowers! Just incredible colours. The the photos of all the boats and ships are so much fun!  It took me a while to recognize that the cruise ship wasn't a building with a funny roofline. 😂  I'm such a cold climate landlubber!

[chocolate-chip chooky]

How's your daughter feeling about the congress? Nervous? Excited? A mix of both?

We're all cheering her on!