Zoo-Tacular

Over the NYE break, Suzy and I went up to the delightful Dubbo to visit Western Plains Zoo. It was a great few days, plenty of swimming in the various motel pools, and a day of cycling around the Zoo (needless to say, I was the first to beg for mercy!).

We drove up the day before, and stayed overnight in Dubbo proper so that we could start at the Zoo bright and early. The next morning we headed up to the Zoo, and picked up our bikes for a cruise around. It was only slightly cooler than Sydney itself, about 40-43 degrees, so spending about 4 hours on a bike was super fun! But we saw a lot of animals, and had a great time.


Here is the place we stayed within the actual zoo. It was like a canvas studio apartment, with bed/living area and a small separate bathroom (which was a more permanent structure). We had full electricity, lights and a fridge, but no need for any cooking implements because dinner and breakfast were included. The eland is like a kind of antelope or something, all the other lodges has similar animal names.


Here we are on one of the tours we went on as part of the package. This was the area where the Girraffes go to sleep and be fed, and we all got a chance to feed them some carrots.



Here are the meercats, although there were not that many of them. Apparently they all like to tunnel, and as their enclosure is designed so that they can't get out, that means they just tunnel the hell out of the actual area they have available to them. Shortly before we arrived, they had caused a cave-in which killed about half the population. I think there were only 5 or 6 left.


The African Wild Dog, something I hadn't actually seen before. There was a pack of them which we watched getting fed. The matriarch of the pack is the first one to get food, and if she isn't satisfied that she got enough, she will start making this high pitched squeal which will make the others throw up so that she can have some of their food too... I'm still working on perfecting the technique.


This just made us think of a certain fur baby who had been left at his country resort (read Suzy's parents). While Herky is technically canine, we are all pretty sure he is mostly cat.


The WPZ is one of the first places to breed cheetah in 15 years. I can't remember which one this is, but essentially they got a male and tried to get him to choose a mate. And he did... his sister. So after the sister was removed from the compound, he picked again and sired two cubs. They were pretty much fully grown when we got there, but skittish as hell. While we were looking at them, a car drove past making a touch too much noise, and they both bolted before you knew what had happened.


I was pretty surprised to see Otters at the Zoo. With the exception of the Hippo's, they were pretty much the only animal there that spent a noticable amount of time in water. It just seemed a bit random, I would have thought it was too hot for them there. They were extremely active when we arrived, but never really managed to get a good shot of them.


Here are the Siamangs, who are one of the apes which make a massive hooting sound to mark their territory. We saw them on the morning tour, and they put on a show for us. Apparently you can hear it in Dubbo (a few kms away). They had a little baby with them, which spent most of its time glued to the mum. But she was teaching him to be a bit more independant, which basically involved putting him down somewhere, giving him a shove to knock him over and then running away hooting. It's creepy to see how similar to humans they are, isn't it?


Here we have the baby "black" rhino. He was a bit tired here, because of all the running. They had switched a big sprinkler on in his area, which was totally awesome to run at and then run away from over and over. Clearly. I say "black" because the black and white rhino look pretty similar, they got their names due to a stupid mis-translation. The white rhino were called that as the person misunderstood, they were trying to say "wide" for their wide squarish mouths, but somehow white has ended up sticking. And if one of the rhino is "white", the other must be black! Let's not let the fact that they are the same colour influence matters!


I like this picture, but I'm not really sure why. This is one of the Barbary sheep, a kind of mountain goat.

So if anyone is thinking about heading up to the zoo, I can really recommend going for the "Zoofari Lodge" and spending the night there. Perhaps when it is a bit cooler, but even in the heat we were fine at night. The food was excellent, the tours were really fun and you get bike hire etc thrown in.