The lead-in exhibit for the Sydney Aquarium is the platypus exhibit.
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| Attempt #1 to capture a platypus swimming by. Its in constant motion. | Attempt #2. The platypus is swimming away from the camera, bill down, sweeping back and forth. | |
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| A shot of the shrimp in the platypus tank, its main food. | Although tough to see, near the middle of this picture is a large turtle, head sticking out of the water, holding perfectly still. |
Next we walked through a series of small exhibit tanks.
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| A huge salt-water eel. Eewww! | The barramundi - this one is about three feet long. | |
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| Smack in the middle of this picture is a mudskipper, a fish able to breath air for extended periods. | In the back corner of the same exhibit was a hermit crab. | |
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| Who said "small exhibit tanks"? This is a six foot long salt-water alligator, better known as a "saltie". | The above-water view of the same crocodile. He was holding perfectly still... looking directly at the keeper's door into the pen. | |
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A tree frog, partly hidden behind a large leaf. He was perfectly still, almost seemed plastic. There were a number of other frogs in the tank, but this one was the only one easily visible by the camera. |
Past the series of tanks was a larger, outdoor tank for the Australian fur seal lions.
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| In the front tank was a floating rock, with two fur seal lions snoozing in the sun. | In the back tank, one seal lion sat up and studied the people studying him... | |
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| Then a second one showed up, with great noisy self-generated fan fare. You can see the tail of the other seal lion on the left. | Hey! Who's that in the tank? Its a Pacific Coast Harbour Seal, a long long way from home. Nope, no explanation for why its here, other than its not supposed to be. | |
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| Then a third pops up and argues with the second about who had the best entrance. | The original seal lion chases the other two off the platform, then with a look back, jumps into the water as well. | |
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| A fourth sea lion was swimming at high speed around and around the tank, every so often leaping from the water from this spot. This is an attempt to photograph the leap - before... | ...and after. You can see the tail still poking out of the water. Digital cameras (and their operators), just aren't fast enough to keep up with acrobatic sea lions. | |
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A short while later, one of the three that were previously on the platform returns, and does some serious scratching. |
There was an underwater portion of the sea lion display, but the seal lions wouldn't hold still long enough to get a decent photo...
Back in the indoor part of the aquarium, we visited more tank displays of exotic Australian sea life.
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| This sea horse swam around the tank at a good clip - for a seahorse. Its about three inches long. | In another tank nearby was a HUGE crab - about three feet across. | |
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| Two rocks over in the same tank, another huge crab. Wouldn't want to run into those claws. | This is a large indoor penguin exhibit, with a glass ceiling to let in the light. The pool is kept very cold. | |
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| Just as this picture was taken, the penguin turned in the water and scratched. | This penguin swam past the glass repeatedly, eyeing the children. | |
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| A tank filled with jelly fish and lit with blue light to make them shine. | Its hard to see, but this is another kind of seahorse, an odd orange colour. |
The next display had us walking down long ramps that spiraled below sea level and then through tunnels in a massive tank filled with ocean life.
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| A heavily touched-up photo of a sea turtle, sitting quietly in the corner of this otherwise very busy ocean tank. | A bright orange moray eel pops out and menaces a passing fish. | |
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| SHARK! The tank was full of a variety of nasty looking sharks. | On the left! | |
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| On the right (no, not the same picture flipped)! | Right over our heads in the tunnel. | |
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| Another one travels over our heads. | A great look at the mouth of this leopard shark - row on row of teeth. | |
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| Right out of Little Mermaid - a head on view of a large leopard shark. | A peek over the lip of the tunnel shows a little nurse shark, able to sit perfectly still on the bottom. | |
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| Also in the tank was this HUGE ray, you can get an idea how big it is by the size of the person in the bottom right. It was at least ten foot tip-to-tip. | Another shot of the giant ray. | |
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This is a different ray, smaller, banking away from the tunnel. You can see behind the ray another tunnel going through the tank. |
Back out of the deep tank, we entered a Great Barrier Reef display, which focused on the many corals of the reef.
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| Here's a set of corals and a sea cucumber in the foreground. | A huge anemone, with a few fish in it. | |
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| Its tricky to make out, but there's a school of butterfly fish popping their snouts out of the water here... | Here's a view of the same fish from under the water. Weird, innit? | |
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| A gigantic anemone, covered with fish... at least four foot across. | This fish is bright fuchsia. Isn't fuchsia an artificial colour that doesn't occur in nature? |
One more big tank, this one wasn't so deep and had a different array of sea life living in it.
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| A gigantic parrot fish comes right up to the glass - at least four foot long. | An equally huge shark ray swims by, eye tracking people as it goes by. | |
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| Right under our feet was more glass and more strange creatures - this is a different species of shark ray, laying on the bottom. | Another huge fish - this time a grouper. | |
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| A look at the sheer size of this tank, it goes back a long, long way. | Another school of angel fish, these swimming together in erratic patterns under water. | |
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| Near the exit of the aquarium is this huge window, able to view the whole length of the big tank. | How huge is huge? All these people are sitting in front of the tank, watching the creatures inside. |
Like all well designed tourist traps, the exit to the aquarium forced us through the gift shop (we resisted) and the coffee shop (we bought a drink, is that giving in?), then outside.