Koalas.kangaroos, Wombats, Etc.

[MOYSHA]

We will be on a cruise in AUS and NZ in December and are trying to plan out our excursions. We will be in the following ports:

Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Melbourne, Tasmania and Sydney.

We definitely want to go somewhere where we can see and hopefully be interactive with Koalas, Kangaroos, Wombats, etc.

Anybody been there, done that or have any suggestions ?

We are planning on having 2 days pre cruise in Sydney.

Thanks for any help you care to offer

[Janan]

well Fancy meeting you here!:D Jan and I are planning to do the Blue Mountain tour with wildlife...I saw them mention Featherdale wildlife park on the travel channel and think tha'd be cool!:cool: It's sounds like a great offering by celebrity...that Gondola though!:eek:

[Kinkacruiser]

As you have two days in Sydney pre-cruise, what about a visit to the Taronga Zoo...a world-class attraction on Sydney Harbour.They have all the Australian wildlife as well as the usual variety.

Enjoy your trip and cruise.

Best Wishes,

Anna

[MOYSHA]

Actually the 2 wildlife attractions that were recommended to us were Koala Park Sanctuary and Featherdale Wildlife Park. Both of these were highly recommended.

Of the two which would you suggest, and are they easy to get to from Sydney via public transportation ?

[mochuck]

Neither are easily accessible by public transport. You are better off taking a tour of some sort. Here are a couple:

 

Blue Mountains and Wildlife Encounter

 

Blue Mountains Day Tours

 

Most of the tours include a trip to the Blue Mountains because Featherdale is a fair way out from the city and doesn't really require a whole day to see it so they make it part of a bigger tour.

 

If you google Featherdale tours you'll find a whole lot more. Almost all of them include a ferry ride back up the Parramatta Rvier to the city which is a nice way to finish off the day.

[MOYSHA]

Thanks for the replies so far.

Kinkacruiser.......what we are looking for is more of a "hands on " approach and that's why we were looking at Koala Park Sanctuary and Featherdale Wildlife Park. Where we live in Florida we have a top rated zoo and an excellent anomal park (Busch Gardens)

mochuck........our problem with a tour is that we are scheduled to arrive Sydney on the 6th (hopefully early AM) so we can not go on a tour that day, but will have the rest of the day to ourselves after hotel check in. On the 7th we have to get our luggage to the ship as we are staying that night on the ship which doesn't leave till the 8th.

Even though we have the days "to ourselves" we do have the above that interfere with the day and for that reason we can not go on an organized tour, therefore I was thinking of the public transportation (train )

[beargal]

You don't say whether your port in Tasmania is Hobart or Burnie. If Burnie and you are on HAL there is a tour to Trowunna Wildlife park. It is a Tasmania Devil rescue center. We were there in Oct 07 and you walk around some on your own as well as have a guide that answers questions. I was able to hold a baby Wombat then everyone in the group was allowed to hold a grown wombat (for a photo op so make sure someone has your camera to get your pic) we petted a Koala, as well as a devil. The kangaroos are just walking around so you can pet or feed them. This was also our lunch stop for the day. We did not realize where the kangaroos were until the guide took us so we did not get to spend as long with the roos as we would have liked.

There were also quolls,various birds, echnida etc.

Hope this helps and enjoy your time in NZ and Australia

Rebecca

[MOYSHA]

Beargal, after reading your post I am sad to say that we will be in Hobart,Tasmania

[tobes]

We went to Bonorong in Hobart and it was an actual petting zoo of kangaroos! I never expected to get that close and personal. You can feed, hug, cuddle, pet, walk with, hop with and, of course, photograph with the kangaroos! You can pet the koalas but not hold them. It was one of the highlights of our excursions.:)

 

 

 

 

We will be on a cruise in AUS and NZ in December and are trying to plan out our excursions. We will be in the following ports:

Auckland, Tauranga, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Melbourne, Tasmania and Sydney.

We definitely want to go somewhere where we can see and hopefully be interactive with Koalas, Kangaroos, Wombats, etc.

Anybody been there, done that or have any suggestions ?

We are planning on having 2 days pre cruise in Sydney.

Thanks for any help you care to offer

[wblevin]

Both Featherdale and Koala Park Sanctuary actually are very accessabile by public transporation. We caught the train at Circular Quay for about $16 (a day pass) and told the ticket master we wanted to go to Pennant Hills for the Koalas and Doonside outside of Blacktown for Featherdale. Bother were about a 45 minute train ride and another 10 minute $3 bus ride and and the bus literally was right next to the train station and dropped you off right outside the parks! Both parks, however, are not near each other.

 

People were very friendly and we loved the interaction with the wombats, koalas, kangaroos, and cockatoos - not to mention seeing the echidnas, dingos, fairy penguins, sheep, etc. Featherdale does have a Tasmanian devil and I do not believe that Koala Park did. We did see some baby devils later in the trip at Bonorong :D

[mochuck]

Well, there you go. I didn't know that you could catch a bus from Pennant Hills station to Koala Park.

 

Wendy, how did you get from Pennant Hills to Blacktown?

[rjscott]

Moysha, we've been to both Featherdale and Koala Sanctuary and loved them both! Here's the site for Sydney and surrounds public transit. You can input your starting point and your destination and you'll be provided with the choices available for public transit to your destinations.

 

http://www.131500.info/realtime/default.asp

[wblevin]

OK - I found my City Rail map. The ship is docked right on Circular Quay. It is a short walk to the train station - inbetween the ship and the Sydney Opera House.

 

To get to Koala Park, you need to take the Northern Line (red). So we took the train to Wynyard and switched to the Norhern Line - it was straight up there then. We walked over the tracks and the bus stop was right there. We asked one of the drivers which bus to take, (I don't remember - there was a choice of three I believe). The bus was there in about 5 minutes. Think it was $3 for the bus ride to the Park. It literally dropped us off directly across the street from the park. When we were done at Koala Park, we got the bus back to the train and took the Northern line south and did a switch at Strathfield to the North Shore/Western Line (yellow). We took that straight up to Blacktown. We got out, walked over the train tracks again and there was a larger bus depot here. We waited about 20-25 minutes for the bus here. This bus dropped us right out in front of Featherdale Park,

 

We left in the morning at rush hour, so there were lots of trains running every few minutes. We were returning about 4ish, had about a 7-8 minute wait for the train back to Sydney, but the buses actually left Featherdale about 10 minutes before we did. We did call a taxi as we were pretty sure we had missed the bus that came on the 1/2 hour and decided we really didn't want to feel like we were rushing for the ship - bus was $3 apiece, taxi was $8 for all of us (trains were only about every 20 minutes at this hour). Took the train back to either Central or Town Hall, and switched to the South line (green). We arrived at the ship right before the buses (that came direct from Featherdale) - we were in line to get on the ship ahead of all of them!

 

Their train system is so much superior to ours. It is clean and easy to follow - similar to England's IMO. We had no problem and it was relatively inexpensive. Also makes it easy when there is no language barrier :D We should have asked about round trip bus tickets or all day bus tickets - next time :cool:

[MOYSHA]

People were very friendly and we loved the interaction with the wombats, koalas, kangaroos, and cockatoos - not to mention seeing the echidnas, dingos, fairy penguins, sheep, etc. Featherdale does have a Tasmanian devil and I do not believe that Koala Park did. We did see some baby devils later in the trip at Bonorong :D

 

Wendy, at which park were you able to interact with the animals listed above? Was it at the Koala Sanctuary?

Sadly we will have time for only one of the parks and we would like the one that we would be able to interact with the most.

 

Prior to "meeting you" I had sent an email to Koala Park and the manager was kind eniough to reply and to include directions.

 

rjscott....thanks for your input. Which did you enjoy most? Wblevin almost has me "sold"(;) ) on the Koala Sanctuary

 

Thanks

[wblevin]

Wendy, at which park were you able to interact with the animals listed above? Was it at the Koala Sanctuary?

Thanks

 

We arrived at the park about 10ish. Bought 6 bags of kangaroo food (honey nut cheerios!) There is a schedule that they have for showing each of the animals and there were maybe about 15-20 of us there. We started out at the Wombat presentation. The woman told us about the wombat and the man brought her out and sat down on a bench with her on his lap - then everyone took turns petting her and sitting on the bench next to her for pictures. From there, we all went over to the koalas. One was up in the tree just waking up. She grabbed him by his upper arms (kinda like they grab chimpanzees and carry them). She said that was the safest and easiest way to pick up koalas. She brought him over to the wooden railing that surrounded the koala enclosure. He walked around the entire railing - sometimes forward and then reversing his path. We all gathered around the railing to be there when he walked by. Everyone had plenty of chances to touch him, have pictures taken with him and cuddle with him. We were not allowed to pick him up. She explained that they have 20 koalas in the park (one a baby born last summer who was in an enclosure by himself). The koala enclosure is wide open, they do have eucalyptus trees around the park, so sometimes the koalas move around - so there are signs around "look up - a koala is sleeping above you". She said that every once in a while a koala will swing through the trees and they will get a call from a "neighbor" that they have one of their koalas in a nearby tree.

 

So from the koalas, we all go to the sheep shearing. This is like our own guided tour. The guy tells us about the art of sheep shearing and shears one of their flock. The Australian Sheep Dog watches as he does this. Did you know a good dog can go for up to $10,000?

 

From there, we all head over to the little blue penguins (fairy penguins) and they tell us about them as they are feeding them - fish head first. They have one penguin that is 20 years old - he actually has a gray head) you can tell in the video below which one he is!

 

I found this video of the sanctuary on you tube. Note - if you have aol, you may want to open in internet explorer instead.

 

After the penguins, the presentations were done, so we all walked around the rest of the park on our own. The cockatoos were fun. Most of them talked - pretty clearly too. We had a good time interacting with them and feeding them the cheerios - they were happy about that and quite gentle. Other animals there included dingos, echidnas, red foxes (actually big bats - you can see them in the wild at the Royal Botanical Gardens by the Opera House), and many different birds. At the end, we ended up in the kangaroo petting area. Lots of kangaroos around and all willing to eat cheerios out of your hand - there were several with joey's in their pouch - we could even pet the joeys!

 

The above presentation goes on 3-4 times a day.

 

Featherdale had all the same animals (I think) on a larger scale. More of each animal in a larger enclosure and they had more property to walk around. We arrived there at a very bad time - exactly the same time that three full buses arrived. It may have been a totally different experience if we had arrived earlier. Maybe Featherdale has a similar feeding schedule for their animals - I don't know. They brought several koalas out to posts so people could come up and have their picture taken with them. Kangaroos were hopping all around - there was food that you could feed them, but most didn't seem terribly interested in eating. They did have a Tasmanian Devil - very funny fellow - he ran around and around and around his enclosure. We were there for about an hour and I think he only stopped once - briefly. He was still running when we left.

 

PLEASE UNDERSTAND - In My Opinion - If you can only do one of the two zoos, I recommend the Koala Park. If you choose to do the Blue Mountain tour that includes Featherdale on the way back - you will NOT be disappointed. Both zoos were very good! We just enjoyed the smaller more intimate tour!

 

I spent a LOT of time ahead of time trying to figure out which zoos to see in Australia. Ultimately, I was very happy with my choices but sad that I had had to pass on Tauranga Zoo outside of Sydney - will save that for next time :D We did end up at a total of 6 zoos on three different stops. Healesville Sanctuary outside of Melbourne was awesome - highly highly highly recommend the Back Stage Tour. ;) Their platypus was out and about and gave us a nice show too. I think there was a big part of the zoo that we did't see, but we spent 2-1/2 hours on the tour that was awesome!

 

Bonorong outside of Hobart was also very good - lots of birds and kangaroos (several kookaburras sat laughing at us) and of couse we did again get our picture taken with the koalas. We were very lucky to have been there when they were taking care of 4 baby tasmanian devils (9 months old). They were cute as could be and sounded so vicious! Think we spent over 1/2 an hour just watching them interact with the staff!

[rjscott]

Moysha, each park had its own pluses and minuses, but we did get to interact a bit more with the animals at Koala Sactuary. When you enter Koala Sanctuary, you'll be given a schedule of times for specific animal interactions. You can pat a koala(but not hold or cuddle it), and at a specific time listed, they had a wombat out of its enclosure for patting(while an employee held it).

We also took a picnic lunch along and had our lunch in a nice picnic area there.

 

As wblevin says, the public transit system in Sydney is wonderful and the transit workers are very helpful in getting you to your destination and back.

[mochuck]

We should have asked about round trip bus tickets or all day bus tickets - next time

 

I think you can buy a $15 daytripper package which covers all bus, train and ferry (exlcuding manly jetcat) for a day per person.

 

As wblevin says, the public transit system in Sydney is wonderful and the transit workers are very helpful in getting you to your destination and back.

 

I guess everything is relative. I don't think a lot of Sydney commuters would agree with you, but thanks for the compliment. I'm glad it at least functions for tourists.

[rjscott]

I guess everything is relative. I don't think a lot of Sydney commuters would agree with you, but thanks for the compliment. I'm glad it at least functions for tourists.

 

mochuck, maybe they took pity on us after hearing our American accents! :D

[Red Rox]

We saw the whole list at Healesville Sanctuary while in Melbourne. Try A Tour With a Difference. Brian gave us a full day with the zoo, wineries, and Puffing Billy Train, all for $129ppAUS

We also enjoyed close interaction including personal photo ops up in Kuranda just outside of Cairns. If you're going to the GBR, take a half day and do the Sky Rail to Kuranda.

[Dorset Cruiser]

We saw the whole list at Healesville Sanctuary while in Melbourne. Try A Tour With a Difference. Brian gave us a full day with the zoo, wineries, and Puffing Billy Train, all for $129ppAUS

 

We also enjoyed close interaction including personal photo ops up in Kuranda just outside of Cairns. If you're going to the GBR, take a half day and do the Sky Rail to Kuranda.

 

 

We also did Healesville and Puffing Billy in Melbourne as well as lunch at a winery and we did Bonorong when in Hobart - this was my favourite place. We got really close to the kangaroos and were able to stroke a koala - they really do smell of Eucalyptus. Also managed to see a T. Devil, kiwis and platypuses - all the things you want to see in Australia.:D