Day 9 - Featherdale (Wed, Feb 28)

Today is the day we make our latest attempt to get to the Featherdale Wildlife Park.  It seems the planets are in alignment in our favour this time, because there don't appear to be any overt obstacles.  We make a quick transfer from the LRT to the trains - and onto the correct train, as well!  No power failures overnight; all trains appear to be running on time.  So far, so good!

This is familiar territory for us, as we are retracing the steps of our failed attempt to visit on Feb 22.  Nevertheless, because it is a new day, we discover something new and exciting (to us, anyway) about the trains.




OMG, that was super-exciting, wasn't it?  (Maybe you had to be there...)

Anyway, when we arrived at Blacktown, we headed to the bus stop.  This is where we called it quits last time.  Today, we board the bus, and JQ asks the driver which stop is it for Featherdale?  I will announce it, says the driver with the sad and patient resignation of someone who has answered that question every working day of his life.  Sounds like he's had his share of tourists heading this way.

Even so, Featherdale is definitely well off the standard tourist track, as we had to ride on the train for an hour to get here, and are now driving through residential neighbourhoods.  Some of the houses have some kind of corrugated metal roofs, which is something I've not seen before.

When the bus driver announces, "Featherdale Wildlife Park!", which is the only stop he announces (he didn't drive down the streets yelling, "Johnson House!", "Kangaroo Road", etc.), JQ and I and the rest of the band of merry tourists depart for our wildlife adventure.

And take a gander at the super-realistic koala sign outside the park!  It might not be the best facsimile you'll ever see, but it is kind of adorable anyway.

Our passes get us admission into Featherdale, and if you're wondering 'why another zoo?', it's because this one offers you a more hands-on experience.  Right before you walk into paddocks for certain areas, you can buy plastic cups filled with grasses.  What for?  To hand-feed the animals, of course!

Animals You Can (and Probably Want To) Feed

Kangaroo	Padamelon
Feeding kangaroos	Swarmed by goats

Just an FYI: JQ is doing okay with those sheep and goats, by the way.  They totally attacked me, grabbed the cup out of my hand (and also stole my lunch money, too).  So BAAAAd.

Trivia Time:  Did you know that the total estimated population of 4 million kangaroo species in Australia is 50 million compared to 22 million people.  The ratio is 2.3 kangaroos to each person in Australia. 😀


Animals You Should Not Feed (but they might eat you)

Wombat	Estuarine Crocodile
Watch out for birds	And Dingo was his name, oh! D-I-N-G-O

The dingos were interesting.  The staff described them as apex predators, able to take down just about everything except the crocodile.  While they do obviously appear very doglike, they are not dogs - their joints have more articulation, and they can also leap straight up six feet in the air, which requires the zoo to have extra fencing fringed around the top of the already high fence.

She also told us that dingos do not bark - they howl and yip, but don't bark - except that the dingo compound is located on the edge of the zoo, and it backs up against some residential back yards.  And their male dingo hears dogs barking, and has learned to mimic their barking.  So, in the wild, they do not bark.  But when they hang out with their city cousins, sometimes they do.

Splendid Tree Frog

I think I saw this in Jurassic Park

They had a wide variety of birds, and there was so much tweeting and screeching and singing.  On the more melodious side of things, the male Chiming Wedgebill has a beautiful five note song that it sings over and over - at first, we thought it was a recording, something electronic, and then realized it was an actual bird nearby.

Here are some of our other feathered friends at Featherdale:


And yes, of course there were Koalas.  Koalas are amazing - they sleep 20 hours a day, and look ridiculously cute for 24 hours each day.  Hard life!

Also, we were lucky enough to see a Yellow-Footed Rock Wallaby mom and joey (baby).  While we were watching, it crawled out of her pouch and wobbled around like a ridiculous little baby that hasn't learned to walk hop yet.  So adorable!

After a long, hot afternoon of wandering around and feeding animals, we went to the cafeteria, had some snacks and drinks, and had to fend off the ibises, who really wanted to eat our food.

After that, we headed back home.  Caught the bus, caught the train, had a nice hour-long ride back to Central Train station.  We did get a bit turned around in the train station, exiting on the wrong side, and then had to backtrack about a kilometer to exit where we could catch our LRT home.

Glad we finally managed to get there, as it was totally worth the effort.  We were able to feed and pet several kangaroos, wallabies, and aggressive barnyard animals, and we avoided losing any limbs to the crocodile.  By any measure, that must be counted as a success!

Tomorrow, we're going caving!
😃