South Coast Travels

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For first full day in LA I had booked to go to San Diego Zoo. San Diego is about 2.5 hours down the south coast of California. On the trip I was joined by a noisy bunch of Aussies, as they are called here and some other travellers from Canada, Italy and America). So after a brief hello, I quickly sided with the Canadians on board and enjoyed travelling through the day with Trevor and Gordon.

The drive down had a few highlights for the group and some were just special for the driver. The first one the driver wanted to mention was the monument for Dolly Parton’s breasts. Well it was actually a power station, but anyway the driver wanted to infer something about the shape of the two plants. I thought the fuel source and its location near a fault line was more significant.

We also saw large houses and estates poised on the ridge line looking down to the sea. The views would have been spectacular, but so would the rumbles during an earthquake. The area is an area recognised for landslides and people choose to perch their home on the edge of the precipice. I guess most of the time it has a good stable view.

San Diego zoo is recognised for some of the earlier advancements in captive breeding and semi realistic exhibit areas. The collection of exotic animals from Northern Hemisphere countries is good. Apparently San Diego is far south enough to have a relatively mild climate which makes it a good region for a variety of animals.

The most impressive exhibit was the hippo tank. Much like many other large aquariums, this one enabled the mammal the chance to swim. For the time I was there it moved around in a gentle hovering motion, above and below the water. I have taken some photos, but it is hard to get the true sense of the size of this creature. It was much larger than the polar bear or other creates we saw in the water.

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