Taronga Zoo Taronga visit 08/01/10

[phoenix]

so yesterday decided to check out taronga for the first time in years.

since my last visit would probably have been about 5 years ago there was a lot to check out. most of the zoo would be unrecognisable to me.

taronga is a shopping mall.

why?

well mainly because taronga has a serious crowd problem. i have heard it mentioned here on the forum before but i had no idea. its outrageous.

i queued up for a ferry ticket
i queued up for the ferry
i queued up for the skyfari
i queued up to enter

then walked into the reptile house and discovered it was one long queue.

and i'm not even going to mention lunch.

its actually at the point where they have to think about limiting the number of people that can enter. it was ridiculous. i had children with me and we kept losing them. you couldn't move. and i mean ANYWHERE. i barely saw a single animal. there were deep crowds at every single exhibit. getting out of the aviaries was a nightmare thanks to the "airlock" style doors that require one to be closed before another opens. virtually anything that could hide had done so. fortunately for most this was easy since the glass was almost always opaque with childrens fingerprints and snot.

as for exhibit design. well that all adds to the mall vibe. like most modern zoo exhibits everything is over-engineered. the bull elephant exhibit is a classic example of zoo architecture run amok - and no doubt making the exhibit 10 times costlier than it needed to be thus depriving other areas of renovations. there are huge steel pillers to support shade sails that could have been attached to wall or other structure just a few meters away. the fencing is often had an enormous amount of materials poured into its design and structure when in reality - it actually serves no purpose. not the design and often not even the wall itself.

there are escalators. taronga's topography needs it - but i'm just saying - its a shopping mall.

the elephant show was ugly. the elephants were introduced one by one and waved at the audience. the audience squeeled in delight and cheered.
the speakers were soooooo loud. the keeper was reading of a card. she had a bogan accent. we moved on.

wild asia? meh. i didn't like the landscaping. its not a forest at all. its a series of structures. its not an immersion exhibit. its an asian themed garden. not a forest. the best thing were the aviaries (if you could get out). the francois langur exhibit looked nice and big. so too did the fishing cats. the tapir exhibit is atrocious. thank god it won't be replaced. of course most of the animals were hiding. the elephant exhibit is too small. it really is smaller than melbournes overall.

GSO i made it halfway through and then realised that i had to walk all the way to a bottom of a hill and then back up again just to see the penguins and leopard seals. we lied and convinced my nephew we would see them on the way out. from what i saw it it had some nice things about it. some nice touches.

by this stage i just wanted to leave. so we did. we had already spent over $200 - taronga is the biggest rip off of all time.

so yes, it was an aweful day. and the verdict is, that in all seriousness - i probably won't ever go back. and before anyone tears my throat out - i'm not saying that many of the problems are the fault of the zoos management. i mean, how do you stop the crowds from coming? how do you design good exhibits and have decent navigation for a zoo thats built on a steep hill? its not easy.

but like the rest of sydney, the best thing about the place is the view.

likewise - i'm admittedly am over zoos a lot. i think i like talking about zoos much more than i actually like visiting them. i really don't care much for watching the animals. i like the design. i guess i've seen enough of my fair share of wild animals in their habitat to get no thrill out of seeing things at the zoo whatsoever - let alone another elephant or monkey. i haven't enjoyed the last few zoo visits i've had anywhere. this is not a melbourne vs sydney thing. there is lots of stuff i love about sydney. thats why i lived there for a time. and thats why i frequently visit the city.

but, thats that. i hated that experience and if i hated the experience then how can i rate the place highly? i can't.

highly overrated. and the fact that the half day stung us $200 made it all the worse.

 

[Hix]

So I guess you didn't read post 19 in this Taronga thread, that I posted a few weeks ago: http://www.zoochat.com/24/taronga-zoo-117118/

Yesterday was a bad day to go to the zoo. There would be close to 10,000 people visiting (if not more) so that's where the crowds came from. So you have to queue for everything. The animals are in hiding because of the crowds and the screaming kids.

I'm not trying to tell you you're wrong, I'd probably be writing a similar review if I was in your shoes. But you should go back on a day outside the school holidays and see what it's like then. I think you'll have a better time.



Hix

 

[MARK]

Even with less crowds there it's still not going to change the exhibits he did not like

 

[Hix]

Even with less crowds there it's still not going to change the exhibits he did not like

That's true, but he'll at least be able to see through the glass, be able to get in and out of the aviaries and have relatively uninterrupted viewing of most of the exhibits. And lots of the animals won't be hiding.

It won't change the exhibits he did not like. But he will better enjoy the rest of Taronga.

Because he had to queue repeatedly before even getting into the zoo, he was already in, shall we say, an 'irritated' state of mind and this will have influenced his views. His children kept getting lost - very stressful for a parent, and would add to his irritation.

I'll say it again: if he was to go back outside of school holidays (preferably during the week - the first Tuesday in February would be ideal) and without his kids, he will enjoy the zoo much more. No, it won't change the exhibits he doesn't like, but he will enjoy the rest of the zoo more.

Having said that, I understand that Phoenix is from Melbourne and probably cannot get back to Taronga in early February.



Hix

 

[snowleopard]

@phoenix: thanks for posting your review of Taronga, even though you ripped the establishment to shreds and might never go back. I loved my single visit to Taronga Zoo in May of 2007, and since then there have been even more exhibits constructed due to the hectic pace of redevelopment at that Sydney attraction.

I wholeheartedly agree with you in terms of the elephant exhibit being much too small, as of the more than 80 elephant exhibits in North America probably 90% of them are larger than Taronga's, which is still relatively brand new! Also, the place is very costly and the #2 most expensive zoo I've ever visited after Disney's Animal Kindgom. However, I do agree with Hix and think that if you were to visit on a school day at another time of the year you might reconsider many of your statements. You could well continue to dislike certain exhibits, but the overall vibe of the zoo would be dramatically different.

 

[jay]

i

like most modern zoo exhibits everything is over-engineered. the bull elephant exhibit is a classic example of zoo architecture run amok - and no doubt making the exhibit 10 times costlier than it needed to be thus depriving other areas of renovations. there are huge steel pillers to support shade sails that could have been attached to wall or other structure just a few meters away. the fencing is often had an enormous amount of materials poured into its design and structure when in reality - it actually serves no purpose. not the design and often not even the wall itself.
.

This comment is something I've tried to raise a couple of times now. The amount of money spent on over design, over building an exhibit. Money that could be used for other purposes. I think this may be a govt. thing. Govt. made items are usually more costly that if a private organisation did the same thing because the private organisation can't afford to waste money. (Nor can govt. but they do anyway).

 

[phoenix]

you guys are absolutely right that, should the crowds be removed, it would have been a radically different experience. for example tarongas reptile house i have always really liked in layout, with its mixture of indoor and outdoor exhibits (though most of the indoor ones were looking really shabby and in need of a refurb). but on that particular day, it didn't much matter what the exhibit was like.

but you guys get that.

in regards to over-engineering - it really is a zoo-trend that i am far from pleased about. its a shocking waste of money. the seal pools are often not really THAT much bigger given the money that has been spent. i accept that taronga is a very difficult zoo to landscape. the topography makes it hard. one of the things i always liked about it was the use of the natural sandstone as walls for many of the exhibits. these days however i saw much less of it. there is more rockwork than ever. only most of it is faux. i hate to bring up melbourne here but i think that that zoo has some examples of immersion that really works. interestingly its all the earlier stuff that was done in the 90's. funny that. that the 90's was probably the time at which zoo design was at its pinnacle for me. spacious exhibits, simple fencing, heavily planted with space between the exhibits to feel the environment. this is important for immersion. you need moments to place you back in the forest context. melbournes later immersion exhibits fail to do this - and the situation at taronga is a bit more extreme again. its a shame, whilst melbourne on the whole has done a marvelous job of creating a tropical atmosphere, its a piece of cake for taronga. as a keen gardener - sydney has the perfect growing climate for just about anything. thus i was disappointed to never feel like i was in a forest in wild asia. the deer and chicken,(oops i mean junglefowl) exhibit was easily the best point. i think something much more special could have been created there. a real centerpiece with those trees. but with some twenty odd chickens and a few deer it has a friendship farm vibe. as has been said before. it is here that we had a good opportunity to place primates and tapir.

to give credit the aviaries are good. particularly the wetlands one. its a real shame they overstocked everything with koi. the fishing cat exhibit was, wait for it - pretty great. i'll overlook the crappy faux tree for the fact that it had live barbs and white cloud minnows living in the stream at the front. very nice.

i think taronga is poorly laid out, and it hasn't much been corrected. which makes the overcrowding problem a lot worse. that many people makes navigation hard enough without needing people walking in the opposite direction to you.

anyhow, thats that. like is said. won't go back BUT then i haven't visited melbourne in a long time either. a place i used to visit almost once a month.

 

[boof]

I visited Taronga on Friday as well. I had booked a behind the scenes tour without realising that it was in the middle of school holidays. I think my feet were ran over by a stroller being pushed by a stressed out mum at least three times. Pheonix is right, it was over crowded, but i believe that the new entry area, once it opens will help to spread out the crowds. Also the chimps area being closed changes the zoo. That usually holds a large crowd for a lot longer then the new tempory enclosure does. If you get the chance, Pheonix, take Hix's advice and visit mid week outside of holiday times. sometimes it feels like you have the zoo to yourself.
just out of interest, did you visit anywhere else while you were in Sydney. I believe over crowding is a problem everywhere in summer in Sydney. Even walking through circular quay is difficult.