The Western Plains Zoo, NEW SOUTH WALES
Airing Date: Jan 1st, 2002
Now imagine the same experience only five hours' drive from Sydney.
The Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo in central west New South Wales is home to over a thousand different animals from every continent except Antarctica. The zoo has a worldwide reputation for its great safari experience, made more authentic by the existence of unique African-style tented-lodge accommodation.These lodges are collectively known as the Zoofari Lodge and make the zoo the only one in Australia to provide accommodation. However, you can only stay in the Zoofari Lodge if you are booked into the overnight Zoofari Lodge Retreat package.This package includes three tours of the zoo, which take place in the afternoon, evening and early morning. The tours are unique in that they are designed specifically to allow you to see different animals at their most active period of the day. They also allow you to see and do activities that you wouldn't normally get to do as a day visitor to the zoo.
The first leg of the tour in the afternoon will take you around the feeding of the giraffes, the elephants and the highly endangered rhino. After dinner in the lodge's main dining room, you head back out, just in time to catch the hippos and the wombats at their most active.Day two of the tour will see you rise at daybreak and do a lap of the early-rising animals such as the Malaysian white-handed gibbons and the Siamang. After the final leg of the tour, you can take advantage of the free bike hire that the package offers and cycle around the zoo's six-kilometre circuit.
The Facts
The Zoofari Lodge Retreat package costs from $198 per adult twin share and $159.50 for children aged 5-16. Children under four can get in for $55.
The package includes two days' zoo admission, one night's accommodation in the lodges, dinner and breakfast, tours and bicycle hire as well as a lunch voucher for the zoo kiosk.
Further Information
Zoofari Lodge Retreat
Tel: 1300 720 018
