Day 253 / 2014 - Hanging Around Dubbo

Dubbo has a number of major highways which pass through it making it a hub. The Newell takes traffic from Melbourne to Brisbane the Mitchell takes traffic from Sydney to Burke on into Western Queensland. There is also the Sunshine Highway which goes from Dubbo to Newcastle.

Our route so far has been along the Newell starting from a town call Gilgandra where we left the Castlereagh Hwy. We will be continuing along the Newell south once we leave Dubbo to just inside the Victorian Border near Cobram. We are at the Dubbo Big 4 caravan park on the south end of town. The park is nice but the sites are not really setup for vans over 17 feet long there is a small number of drive through site on which one we have.

Dubbo's most prominate attraction is the Western Plains Zoo now known as the Taronga Western Plains Zoo. Wednsday we decided to visit this attraction. We had only planned for a few hours but you can easly spend the whole day. The zoo has large plain areas giving the animals much more freedom to roam. Some areas are of only a few acres especially for the dangerous hunting animals but there are some areas of many acres for the gentler animals such as the Zebras, Giraffes, Gazels, etc..

The zoo itself is large and has a 5 Km circuit road which takes you to most attractions. You can either drive your own car, hire a bike, hire one of the golf carts or just walk. We opted for the bike but I think we also walked a fair bit of the time due to the hills. There are many exotic animal exibits not Indigenous to Australia. The Meercats were quite entertaining a number were fossicking for food but a couple would always stand lookout keeping an eye out for preditors. The Tiger demonstration was also eye opening watching a rather large Tiger climb a vertical pole some 10 metres in the air to tear food from a bag. We learned don't climb trees to get away from a Tiger.

Most animals in Western Plains Zoo can be found in other zoos around the country. There was no unusual animal to see the unusual thing is the size of the enclosures and trying to mimic their natural surroundings. I would recommend packing a picnic lunch and plenty of snacks and drinks as you can spend a whole day there. The carts can be hired for $69.00 for three and a half hours and they hold up to 6 adults. The bikes can be hired for the whole day starting at $15.00 or just take your car. There is food for sale but it can get quite expensive especially if you include kids. The entry ticket can be used for 2 consecutive days and You can go around as many times as you like in that time but if you ride or walk it most likely 5+ Km in one day is enough.

There are other attractions in Dubbo we also visted the Botanic Gardens. This by no means a Kings park scale but still pretty nice. There are a number of sub gardens including a Japanese, Sensory, Biodiversity and Oasis Valley. Entry is free and you can take you time walking through each garden.

Another attraction Dundullimal Homestead they say is the oldest timber slab house built. It shows how the homestead looked when it was originally built in the 1800's. There is alos a tearoom where you can sit down for a cuppa once you have finished looking around.