A day trip from Sydney to see some kangaroos and koalas!
August 4, 2019
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I had an amazing time visiting Featherdale Wildlife Park. For anyone visiting Sydney and looking for a day trip to see some kangaroos, koalas, and more, I highly recommend it! I had heard about this zoo from other travelers at the hostel, and I am so glad that I followed their advice! This trip was the first time since I arrived that I felt like I was in Australia. Sydney is great, but it is your typical international city. Seeing the animals native to Australia at Featherdale really made me believe I finally made it to Australia!
How to get there
The Featherdale Wildlife Park is located about 40 km (25 miles) outside of Sydney CBD. For those who are unsure was CBD stands for, it is an acronym for Central Business District, or back home usually referred to as downtown. I know some of you immediately thought of cannabis when you saw CBD, but in Australia weed is illegal and instead, CBD is used to describe a city’s downtown area.
I took the train from Sydney’s Central Station to the Doonside stop, which was about an hour and a half journey. From the train station, I ended up walking the 1.6 km (1 mi) instead of taking the bus.
Cost
General Admission to Featherdale is $34 AUD for an adult and this price does not include a koala encounter. If you wish to have your photo taken with a koala it is an additional $25 AUD! (The encounter is just to have a photo taken, it is illegal in NSW – New South Wales – to hold a koala unless you are specially trained).
But being the thrifty backpacker I am, I only paid $32 for admission and a koala encounter! I found a discounted ticket on Experienceoz.com.au. For those traveling to Australia, experienceoz.com.au and bookme.com.au are great websites to check out for discounted trips and tickets!
All I had to do was show the voucher on my phone at the ticketing desk to get my pass. Easy peasy!
For more information about Featherdale Wildlife Park, you can visit their website here!
So Many Australian Animals!
As soon as I passed through ticketing, I was immediately immersed and surrounded by the wildlife park! First up was the bird sanctuary and there were so many colorful birds of all shapes and sizes. Some were in large, caged enclosures, some in large open-air exhibits, and some were just wandering around the park by your feet! Some of my favorites were the golden pheasant, cassowary, and pelicans (they were huge!).
Koala Encounter
The next area of the park was the much-anticipated koala encounter area! Even if you do not purchase the additional koala experience, there are still koalas on display near the photo area and in the koala area of the park. There were so many!
I was very fortunate that when I arrived, there was no line to get your photo taken with the adorable koala. The koala they had out today was named Archer, and he was the cutest thing! It is illegal in NSW to hold a koala without training, so the rangers had me stand beside him and I was able to place my hand on his leg. He was very active and loving his eucalyptus leaves! He was so sweet, he even reached down and held my hand!
Walking with the Wallabies
After the koala encounter came the wallaby section! Here I was able to watch, pet, and feed some wallabies. Wallabies look very similar to kangaroos, but are much smaller and have different colored fur. The park sells animal food for $3 AUD on an honor basis. There are cabinets throughout the park with cups full of food for the animals inside. The wallaby section had so many young children trying to get up close to the wallabies that it was hard to get a chance to feed them.
I appreciated that within the park, the kangaroos and wallabies were given safe zones where they could retreat and where visitors were not allowed. I could tell the wallabies needed a break as all of them were in their safe zone. After about a half-hour of waiting, a curious wallaby came up to me and ate out of my hand!
Wild Australia
I spent the next hour or so meandering through the middle of the park and seeing all the amazing Australian animals. There were wombats, Tasmanian devils, echidnas, dingos, and even crocodiles! There was also a reptile building, but I steered clear of there! I am terrified of snakes and was not in the mood to see any today, even if they were in cases!
My favorite in this section was definitely the dingos. They are so stinking cute! They look more like pet dogs than I expected. I learned that dingos are not native to Australia. They were brought here about 4,000 years ago by Asian sea merchants and are now found in most areas of Australia.
Kickin’ it with Kangaroos
My final, and favorite stop of the day was the kangaroo corner. Here was another open area where you could walk amongst, pet, and feed kangaroos! There were fewer little kids here so it was easier to have an encounter with the animals. The kangaroos were much larger than the wallabies and were definitely not shy like the wallabies were.
As soon as you walked through the gate, the kangaroos approached you if you had a cup in your hand. They knew you had food and they wanted it! I had one kangaroo, who I dubbed ‘bubz’, follow me around and ended up polishing off my cup of food! He would stare me down and then patted my arm when I was reloading the food. So impatient! He gave me the ‘you are dead to me’ look when I had no more food to give, then took off to find someone else! How rude!
I had an amazing day at Featherdale Wildlife Park and is somewhere I would return to when in Sydney! It is geared more towards little kids, but adults can also learn a lot about the animals and also have a great time interacting with them! The park was much larger than expected and had so many different areas and types of animals to explore!
