Day 56: Dubbo Zoo

Dubbo, is a rural city in New South Wales of around 54,000, and is home to a famous zoo: the Western Plains Zoo. I went there as a child a long time ago. We haven't gone to any zoos for a very long time and it was a bit strange doing it as adults with no kids. David had never been there, so we decided that seeing as we were travelling through, we'd take a day to check it out.

Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros

It’s a large zoo (3 square km), not at all like the little city zoos that most people are more familiar with. Most of the animals have very large areas to roam and they've made an effort to make it closer to how their wild relatives live. There's a circuit of around 5 km that you can drive, walk, or ride around. We took our motorhome and drove. I'm not sure we saved much energy, though, because we also walked over 6 km. Driving meant, though, that we could easily carry our own food and water. We drove, parked, and walked . . . on repeat, several times. I found it a little challenging to orientate myself as we went around!

Map of the zoo.

At one point along the way we met four y.o. Molly, who promptly introduced me to all her family. She's the oldest of three siblings and her mum looked weary. It's easy to see how Molly's opinions were a strong driving force in the family—she didn't hesitate to talk to us, and, I suspect she never hesitates to share her thoughts. I'm sure if we'd hung around we would have heard a lot of things her parents didn't think were appropriate to be sharing with strangers.

We saw three types of rhino. Giraffes, hippo eyes (yep, they were in the water), Tasmanian devils, elephants, wild horses, meerkats, African lions, many birds, wallabies, koalas, etc.There were lots of keeper talks, the challenge was coordinating yourself to get there. We happened upon ones at the hippos and giraffes and actually managed to organised ourselves to hear the Tasmanian Devil and platypus ones.

Meerkats

We also visited the animal hospital late in the day, and read many signs there, but didn't see much action. This zoo is involved in a lot of fascinating work in conservation as well as helping injured wildlife. Check out their website if you'd like to. We could have done more, but we went into the day pretty weary and did what we could. Again, it was a different experience without the wonder (and challenge) of children in our charge, but good nonetheless. The variety of creatures on this earth is amazing, and it's always good to be reminded of God's incredible creation.

Tasmanian Devils. We didn't see them in
Tasmania, but had to wait to NSW!
It's time like this that I wish for a camera
with a zoom lens.

African lion