Okay, so I got a little carried away in the video shop. Britta had asked for Apocalypse Now if they had it, so I got that, and All Quiet On the Western Front (read the book a bunch of times, never seen the movie) and Tai Chi Master and Captain Blood. Two for the price of one, you see. So we watched Apocalypse Now when I got back and I'd only seen it once ages ago, and holy crap but it's excellent.
So after some pretty peculiar Apocalypse Now-inspired dreams I was awakened by Dizzy knocking on my door to get me up and ready for the zoo. We got a choo-choo into town, then out to Circular Quay, where we got a ferry back across the Harbour to where the zoo is. Then we went up in a cable car (of the hanging-from-a-wire variety) because the zoo is on a hill so the easiest way is to start at the top and work down.
There ain't much to say about a zoo actually. I don't really like 'em - I don't care for seeing animals in cages, but Dizzy had said I should see this one because it's got lots of native Australian critters. Indeed it does - there were snakes and frogs and a couple of platypi (?) and an echidna and koalas and some kangaroos and wallabies, and wombats and birdies including the ones that land on our windowsill. There was more standard zoo fare as well, like big cats in enclosures too small for them to run in, and chimps acting silly, and zebras and seals and so on. There were some frogs and reptiles I recognised from the butterfly farm where I worked one summer, and I saw the dreaded cane toad, which has become a major pest in Australia, as is the fashion with introduced species. It was brought in to eat insects that eat sugar cane, but native predators started eating it and dying because it's got poisonous sacs in its shoulders. So now it's pretty widespread and the government is actively encouraging people to kill as many as possible by whacking them with golf clubs (I shit you not). Dizzy says that some animals have learned to turn them onto their backs and eat the belly, thereby avoiding the poisonous bits.
Well anyway, that was a reasonably pleasant day, and I still don't care much for zoos but I'm glad I saw koalas and an echidna because I might not get to see them in the wild. There's some kind of a creature I've met a couple of times in the back garden here when I go out to bring in washing after dark - it streaks across the garden and launches itself onto the big gum (eucalyptus) tree out there at about my head height, and then stays motionless and stares at me and I stare back at it, and eventually we both go about our own business. Britta reckons it's a possum of some kind, a pretty big one if my descriptions of it and her interpretations of my descriptions are to be believed, and I didn't see anything like it at the zoo so I'm still pretty much in the dark.
Got some el cheapo sushi for dinner on the way home and ate it back here before having a bit of a snooze on the couch and watching Tai Chi Master. Jet Li is grrrreat.
I've just remembered that I haven't had a shower since my swim yesterday. My hair, usually adopting a style best described as Surprised Cartoon Character is even stranger than usual due to dried-in saltwater. I'm starting to see why Tom keeps his hair so short, although hopefully my own attraction to diving will never reach the life-dictating level his occupies. There's a shore dive into fresh water next Sunday that I might attend, and Dizzy is talking about joining the club and coming along, partially at Britta's behest because she thinks he should be doing stuff instead of not doing stuff. Quite right!