Our last day in Australia! We decided to spend it at Perth Zoo as we wanted to see a local zoo in each area we visited.
To visit the zoo, we had to catch the ferry from the pier; it took about 10 minutes across the harbour, then a short walk to the entrance.
As we hadnt had any breakfast and it was now almost midday, our first visit was to the restaurant. There was an ibis on the table finishing off someones discarded meal of burger and chips.
We ordered our rather overpriced meal and waited ages for it to be brought to the table. But it was edible!
Then we walked round the zoo. At first we felt the cages were too small, but slowly the atmosphere of the zoo caught us in its spirit. It is a wonderful place with trees grown to provide foodstuffs for the animals and with lots of flowers and bushes everywhere.
There is an active breeding programme for Orangutuans and we loved watching this mother teaching her baby how to break up the ice lollies to get the fruit inside.
The warden told us that one of the orangutuans undid the nuts holding down an iron rope to a treepost, then used it to climb out of its cage. The next day, the ward found the orangutan sitting on the path waiting for her food. She then obligingly went back into her cage as she felt safe there.
Orangutan and baby eating fruit ice lollies
Critically endangered sunbears
Numbat in the zoo
After spending ages in rhe Dryandra National Park searching unsuccessfully for Numbats, we were determined to see them at the zoo and we were not disappointed.
Tasmanian Devil
The Tasmanian Devils have suffered at the hands of farmers using DDT and other chemicals. The devils eat roadkill, some of which is contaminated with the chemicals and it has caused a mouth cancer, which has passed on and is slowly the species. The zoo are breeding devils that do not have the mutation in an effort to preserve the species.
Tree Kangaroo
We were exhausted by the end of the day, and it took considerable effort to walk back to our hotel. We packed our cases and prepared for our flight next day to Johannasberg.
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