Our son was to start school in a couple of weeks and we wanted to spend some quality time with him and our daughter before our new routine began. So we took a few days off and relived some fond memories from my childhood with them, kicking things off with a trip to Featherdale Wildlife Park. 

My last visit to Featherdale was, from memory, when I was nine years old. A whopping 26 years ago – ouch! From the minute we walked into the park a beautiful little kangaroo greeted us, we were captivated and we stayed and played for quite a while.

One of my personal favourites is the wombat and it is rare that I actually see these guys in action. To our surprise and delight we watched two wombats play around and munch on grass in their open area. I could have watched them for hours- You just want to give them a big cuddle.

As we walked through the park the one thing that struck me most was how active all the animals were and how easy it was for everyone to see and enjoy watching the animals, even my three year old had no problem viewing them

Feeding the Kangaroos was a definite highlight, the children loved it and the Kangaroos were very gentle and approachable. Beware of the emu’s though, they are more aggressive and clearly hungry and have no problem pecking your hand to get to the food. The children also LOVED the farm animal enclosure, which is completely interactive, and they got to bottle feed some sheep, pat the guinea pigs and rabbits and feed the goats carrots. It was hilarious, we all got filthy (so be prepared!) the sheep and goats do jump on you like over excited dogs.

The bird life at Featherdale is amazing too, so many beautiful species of birds, some of which I had never heard of or seen. A lot of them were munching on rock melon and fruit, we even got treated to a beautiful owl taking a bath in the water pond. We had to keep watch for little fingers sneaking through the cages to have a pat.

I have been to a number of wildlife parks and you go into the reptile area, dark and cold and every single reptile is asleep. No fun for kids and often, I am sad to say, we breeze though this area as the children cant even recognise where the snake is. I am not sure if we just went on a great day but every reptile, snakes and lizards were slithering around their enclosures.

The children loved it, one very friendly snake was plastered right on the glass looking straight at us and moving around. I was very pleased there was a sheet of glass between the snake and the children; fearless as they are they had their faces right up close so they could see everything.

The Tassie Devil was very funny, clearly doing its circuit training for the day it had warn a track around its enclosure as it ran around and around, smiling for the camera. Another great thing about Featherdale is the Koala’s – they have a number of them available to take photos with – for free! Which allowed all of us to get right up close, have a pat and a lovely photo.

I could go on all day, suffice to say it really was a great day out for the whole family. We laughed so hard our stomachs hurt.

Image “at the zoo” from Shutterstock