If you are planning to visit Sydney and intending to get up close and personal with Australian wildlife, there are few choices to cater your need and preference such as Taronga Zoo, Wild Life Sydney and Featherdale Wildlife Park. After read through all the comments and feedbacks, I decided to go ahead with my choice - visit Featherdale Wildlike Park.
Situated 45 minutes drive away from outside Sydney, Featherdale Wildlife Park is a zoo specialised in Australian native wildlifes, birds and reptiles in an outdoor bush setting. Here, you can meet and pat koala, hand-feed the kangaroos and wallabies and loads more.
Featherdale won the best Major Tourist Attraction award in 2005 and 2009. Not just that, many famous and popular superstars have dropped by here as well, including Leornado DiCaprio, Will Smith, Gwen Stefani, Kristen Steward and Taylor Lautner (the two main stars of Twilight Saga film series), Robert De Niro, Matt Damon and more.
There are more than 1,700 mammals, birds and reptiles can be found here but for me, the must-seen animals are kookaburra, southern hairy-nosed wombats and of course, wallabies, kangaroos and koalas.
Another of my favourite area - Guards of the night. Lately, I'm quite obsessed with owls or known as fukurou in Japanese. I found out they are so adorable and fascinating especially with their big eyes. Do you know that owl symbolises wisdom and luck in many countries?
Eastern grass owl species
So adorable lah!
We even spotted Little Penguin - the smallest of all penguin species with standing at 40-45cm tall and weighing up to 1kg.
The timetable for respective animals presentation
The wallabies and kangaroos were roaming freely around their enclosure and therefore, you can grab this opportunity to get up close, pet and even hand-feed them. But do bear in mind to feed them with their own food only. You can buy a cup of kangaroo food for AU$1 only.
As for the personal koala encounter, it's not free by the way. Starting from AU$25, you will get the chance to meet, pet and photoshooting with the fluffy koala. Of course, we're not allowed to cuddle it like what I did in Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary of Brisbane (post here) but this is definitely a must-do experience during our Assie stay. No bookings is required and we simply bought from the counter upon reaching there. We're even allowed to use our own handphones and cameras but of course, we need to pay first before we do so. Win-win situation, right.
As for the personal koala encounter, it's not free by the way. Starting from AU$25, you will get the chance to meet, pet and photoshooting with the fluffy koala. Of course, we're not allowed to cuddle it like what I did in Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary of Brisbane (post here) but this is definitely a must-do experience during our Assie stay. No bookings is required and we simply bought from the counter upon reaching there. We're even allowed to use our own handphones and cameras but of course, we need to pay first before we do so. Win-win situation, right.
After spending for almost three hours around this wildlife park, we had a rest at a park nearby the cafe before we left.
Despite the fact that Featherdale Wildlife Park is quite distance away from the city center comparing to Taronga Zoo which is much more closer, but I tend to prefer here due to fewer crowds and the best part, I got to get more closer with the wildlife.
HOW TO GET TO HERE
From the city, take the North Shore and Western line to Blacktown Station. Get off and head to the bus station which is located just outside for the bus #729 at Bus Stand E. A 10-minute bus ride and you will reach right outside of Featherdale's gates. You can use Sydney Opal card throughout the journey.
Opening Hours: 8am to 5pm daily
For the latest info of the admission fee, check out here.
Date Visited: 27th May 2017
