Sydney's Taronga Zoo

A visit to Sydney's Taronga Zoo turns into an elephant circus performance. I was shocked to see baby elephants performing tricks for cheering tourists...

Well, Sydney has come and gone. All in all it was a really nice stop over for a few nights but there are some things I'd wish were different.

It all started up in Katoomba on Thursday the 9th where I left you last time around, I was very much looking forward to todays ride as it was 50km of pure descent before another 50km of highway into the city. The 50km of descent from Katoomba to Penrith was by far the best riding of the trip so far, I had a whole bike lane to myself, the road was smooth and the weather was balmy. The only real tricky part was 5km of roadworks which forced me onto the actual road. After cruising into Penrith I was averaging over 28km/hr and it only lowered overall to 23.4km/h after riding 100.88km! Today was also a great day as I crossed over the 1000km mark of the ride. Only 3000km to go!

Crossing the 1000km mark of the ride!

I had arranged to meet friends Dave, Sarah and their 10 month old daughter Harper. I arrived at their house around 2pm and spent a couple of hours eating Daves risotto, playing with Harper and relaxing on their sleep inducing sofa. It was so good to catch up and it was even better as Dave rode the last 15km into Homebush with me, we did a short tour of the Olympic venue and rode on Dave's awesome bike paths before parting at around 5pm. 
From one group of friends to another, I arrived in Homebush at around 5:30pm at my friends Ryan and Stephs house, I stayed with them for 3 nights and I had such a good time with them it was a struggle to leave on Sunday morning. But the show must go on!!!

Speaking of which, I visited Sydney's Taronga zoo on Friday and was really hopeful that they would have a similar program with their elephants as their sister zoo at Dubbo Taronga. To read about Dubbo visit this post: Dubbo Zoo and The Blue Mountains.

Sadly, the approach to elephant treatment and awareness is completely different. Sydney prides itself on their breeding programs and the efforts they are providing for wild elephants. The most upsetting part of the zoo was the disregard for elephant care in captive situations, advertising elephant trekking/shows and the promotion of elephant painting. All of these features were not present at Dubbo Zoo.

Sydneys new born elephants.

Promoting elephant trekking in Thailand

The information panel for the elephant harness

An elephant harness replica for children to use

Original elephant paintings for sale in the Sydney zoo gift shop

Some of Sydney zoos elephant 'toys'

After walking around the entire zoo I went back to the elephants at 1pm for an Asian elephant talk. Many tourists also joined me for this elephant talk. As the elephants were led out into their pen a young lady was speaking about how the elephants are taught special manoeuvres to help with their flexibility and reflexes. As the talk progressed the elephants under the command of their hook-weilding mahouts began performing all sorts of tricks, the lady on the microphone insisted that the tricks weren't for the benefit of tourists but you could applaud if wanted to. 

All I can say is that it was as close to an animal circus as I've ever seen.

The elephants were commanded to perform many tricks that would really have no benefit to them, some of the tricks were even detrimental to their health. You wouldn't see an elephant performing these sorts of tricks in the wild so why force them to perform them here!

Here an elephant stands on 2 opposite legs balancing on uneven rocks.

An elephant walks on 3 legs while holding the 4th with its trunk!

A baby elephant forced to balance on its hind legs.

The elephants and Mahouts wave goodbye.

This is the exact tool the Mahouts at Sydney use to control their elephants. They call it a 'Guide' but it is most obviously a bull-hook. What I don't understand is why they still have the sharp blades on the end of it, surely a rounded top would still do the 'trick'.

This show went for around 20 minutes, while the crowd clapped the elephants on I was having trouble understanding why they were performing these tricks. Some people may think that these tricks cause no real harm to these particular elephants, and I'm sure they are treated kindly by their mahouts. The main reason I found it strange was they were promoting these activities as well as elephant trekking, soccer and elephant painting. These activities may be harmless in Australia but they certainly are not harmless in other countries.

Domestic elephants overseas are separated from their families, tortured, forced to breed and controlled with pain. The next time a visitor of Sydney zoo travels overseas they will think "The elephants at Sydney paint pictures and play soccer and the zoo advertises elephant trekking so it must be ok to do it here too." This will most likely not be the case. So next time you do travel abroad choose your elephant experience wisely. I can tell you it's a much more rewarding experience to give an elephant a friendly mud bath than to ride on its back.  

After the show was complete I wandered around the zoo trying to realise what I had just witnessed, I visited some other animals to try and get my mind off it.

Chimpanzee behind the glass with a melancholy stare.

The Giraffes ponder whether the wind is weak enough to venture outside. Sydney city dominates the skyline.

The critically endangered Snow Leopard

After seeing many beautiful animals behind glass and in cages I found myself drawn back to the elephants and spent about another 2 hours with them. It was really nice to see them actually playing with each other and having a really fun time together. Personally I found it a lot more rewarding watching these natural elephant interactions.

2 baby elephants swimming under the supervision of an Auntie.

More playing by the 3 baby elephants and their watchful Auntie.

A baby elephant ventures a little further out to tackle this buoy. 

The 8th elephant at Sydney zoo is the male Gung, he has an enclosure to himself but it's said he sometimes gets a visit from a couple of the lady elephants. You couldn't really get close to or see Gung which wasn't really a bad thing.

Gung hanging out on the other side of the zoo.

Reason why we can't ride an elephant in Australia anymore.
Pity they still have the elephant trick show...

So after visiting Sydney's Taronga zoo I realised we still have a lot of work to do for Australia's elephants. I never thought there could be so much awareness to be raised about elephants in my own country, I really thought we were a world leader of animal cruelty but as this journey continues I realise we have much more work to do. But first things first, 3000km to ride. HA!!!

Back on the bike. After spending a relaxing Saturday of watching the olympics BMX finals, sleeping in, eating and going to see Collingwood VS Sydney at the Olympic stadium, I was joined by Ryan for the first 20km ride through the city and over Sydney harbour bridge. We took a few photos of us with the Opera house and the bridge before I set off again to try and make the ferry at Palm Beach. Alas, I did make it to the ferry but because of the strong winds it was cancelled. 

Ryan, Steph and I with the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge.

I spent the night in a local youth hostel which was nowhere near as relaxing as I would have liked before setting off early Monday morning. The ferry was still pretty rough and took nearly an hour out of my day, but this route looks much more bicycle friendly than the highway. I made it 80km up the central coast and the scenery is just getting better and better, after spending 3 weeks wondering if its going to be too cold to camp I'm now lavishing the beautiful warm weather. So tonight I'm in the small costal town of Blacksmiths (about 25km south of Newcastle) after a pretty tough day actually. I've now ridden a total of 1211km in 18 days. Making good progress but I still have along way to go, the next elephant encounter will be way up north at Australia Park Zoo, the famous zoo of the late Steve Irwin. They have also been kind enough to give me 2 free tickets to the zoo and an Irwin Family Print, I'm not sure what to do with these but I think maybe an auction to raise money for the fundraiser. Any Ideas anyone? Hopefully the elephant encounter will be a positive one, after Sydney zoo I really need one...

Ride Bikes, Not Elephants!!!

I thought I'd finish with this cute photo of mother and child looking out to the big city, thinking "Is there a better home for us out there"

Thanks for reading, Big thanks must go to Ryan and Steph for letting me stay and great time as well. Thanks also to Dave, Sarah and Harper. 

I'll be riding up the coast from Newcastle to Brisbane in the next few weeks, if there's anyone who would like to catch up I'd love to stop. Anyone keen to go for a morning ride is always welcome, riding with Dave and Ryan this week was a real highlight. Plenty of exciting destinations to come including Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, Lennox Head and Byron Bay. Don't forget our cool T-shirts and Limited edition signed photographs are for sale through our Face Book page, just send us a personal message if you'd like one here: Facebook Page


Thanks again, 

Matt...