It's the cycle of life

Sydney's Taronga Zoo is famous not just for its animals but its spectacular views of the harbour. Its offshoot in Dubbo, the Western Plains Zoo, lacks the views. It attempts to make up for it with a spacious environment for its many large and endangered species on display.

It is my turn to drive today and Google Maps sends me off on an odd route, up Obley Road instead of the Mitchell Highway. Despite the poor state of the road at times I prefer it due to the lack of traffic, especially trucks.

After we arrived at the zoo there is a lot of debate over whether we hire bikes or walk. We didn't realise that we could have driven around the zoo, otherwise we wouldn't have hired the orange bikes.

Maybe we would have enjoyed the visit more. There were some interesting animals, a hippopotamus playing in mud, white, black and single horn rhinoceroses, elephants and giraffes. We could barely see the famous lions.

But cycling around in the heat was tiring and the surrounding environment was basically Australian scrub and not particularly attractive or exotic. I enjoyed it a lot less than a number of other zoos we have visited.

We were utterly hot and exhausted by the time we pulled up at the Dubbo Palms Motel, whose exterior has all the appeal of a warehouse lot. The rooms are okay, but I can hear the main road out the front.

Decades ago I stayed in Dubbo and visited the zoo with my family and I'm afraid that they were not the best of memories. I'm hoping that Dubbo's other attractions will impress more tomorrow.

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One night in Canberra

It's the April school holidays and we are too busy to have a break but need one because of that. And because it's the Easter weekend the options are limited, so we just drive down to Canberra for the night. No, this isn't our first trip for 2023. I wrote about Japan on another site . I refuse to wake up early so we depart after 8.30 AM. There is not much to say about the drive except that the clouds seem so low and Lake George is very full. We stop at a rest area and at the lookout up the hill to take it all in. Everyone is hungry so we first stop in Dickson and then can't think of anything to eat, so I drive us to Civic, where we can't decide and end up eating at the Singaporean Killiney Kopitiam branch. The Canberra Centre has nice shops. I dream of getting an iPad from the Apple Store, we buy a blanket and toothbrushes from Muji and wish that Lego wasn't so expensive. Nothing we can't get in Sydney, but then we rarely go out shopping in the city. It'

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A selection of jams

We're home now. The last two days of our Brisbane trip involved a lot of driving but not always much movement. On Wednesday we arranged to met Sis and her family at Robina Town Centre, a massive shopping mall. That meant a drive down towards the Gold Coast along the same motorway we'd driven up along. What should have taken an hour took twice that due to the holiday traffic along the 3 and 4 lane road. Lots of people taking the turn-offs to three of the "Worlds" (Wet'n'Wild, Movie World and Dreamworld). The Town Centre hosts Artvo , a trick photography gallery where you use perspectives to make subjects look like they are part of the artwork. It was surprisingly fun, despite the aversion of we males to being the subjects of photos. Afterwards we had a long chat over lunch, which was sourced from a variety of eateries. I had roti and chicken curry from Roti and Buns . Passable, though the curry was more laksa like. We later took Sis to Daiso and she and her h

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