Dubbo zoo – where complacent wild birds become lion food.

Dubbo zoo to Dunedoo

Dubbo zoo to Dunedoo

Dubbo zoo to Dunedoo

Well it’s been a while. I think this whole travel thing is wearing me down—wearing us down, actually. Travelling with kids has taken a little bit of the shine off our trip, to this point anyway. In all likelihood, things will improve—it all gets better with time! Trying to find time to write blog posts is difficult but I told myself I would write them, if only for me, so I’ll keep at it. I’m so far behind where we are now that it seems a bit irrelevant but, in any case, here we go.

Following our brief experience of the Warrumbungle’s it was time to move on—next stop, Dubbo and, specifically, the Western Plains zoo. Reaching out to satisfy our inner nerd, we managed to complete the virtual solar system drive (VSSD) along the way. The VSSD is the World’s largest…solar system drive. Yep, it’s all there in the name. The drive consists of billboards, or signs, located along various highways and roads, scaled to distance, albeit around 38 million times smaller, apparently. I wouldn’t say it’s particularly exciting, but the challenge of finding all the planets and snapping a photo provided some amusement, and the drive through the country roads is, for the most part, outstanding. We’re country road kind of people, though. Some of the signs are really cool, mostly the 3-dimensional ones—with its rings, Saturn is a standout, as you might expect. If you’re travelling on a tight budget, or you’re tight-arse with money (we just happen to be both of these), and you consider a series of semi-elaborate roadside signs a travel highlight and an explorers delight, then it’s worth doing the drive and ticking them off. We camped at the Eumungerie recreation reserve—at $10 a night and only 30mins out of Dubbo, and it made the perfect spot for taking in a day at the zoo. We spent our first day trying to not get too wet, drinking hot chocolates and eating custard and raspberry pies, courtesy of Maccas, and keeping Alina amused at a cool playground at the Dubbo botanic gardens, until the rain got too heavy.

Day 2 in Dubbo was a great day spent at Western Plains zoo. We’re not big fans of zoos—animals in cages and all that—but we get it, it’s an opportunity to see animals and wildlife that you wouldn’t otherwise get to appreciate or experience. And I suppose they do contribute to animal conservation and research. In any case, the western Plains zoo is actually great in that the way the enclosures have been designed so that, for the most part, you’re not viewing them through cages. We walked around the 5-odd km park, but you can drive, or even hire bikes, which is a great idea. The day’s highlight was one of awesome misfortune at the lion enclosure. It’s a large enclosure that allows you to view them across a canal rather than through a cage.

There was no one around at the time, probably because the lions were far down the back near the lake, pretty much out of sight. We decided to hang around, taking the opportunity to give Alicia a bit of a rest—she’d already smashed out 5 k’s of pregnant waddling (just kidding—she didn’t get the waddles going too much at all throughout her entire pregnancy). So, we were chilling out, eating some fruit, when the birds far down the back at the lake began making quite a racket, and soon a lioness was walking back toward the viewing area with a fresh ibis dangling from its mouth! It was soon followed was a bit of light, but vocal fighting over the ibis as it was pulled apart. I felt a bit sorry for the poor ibis, but it did make for a spectacle we’re not likely to see ever again. I suspect it was a case of the birds having been a bit too complacent. It just goes to show that, big or small, cats will be cats, and will hunt anything, anytime, well fed or not.

So, that was Dubbo, and it was also the near end of our first real trip within our trip. Before arriving back in Cessnock for a week, we made a quick stop at Dunedoo where, upon attempting to pull up and park, I left a sample of our awning on the light pole. I was a little pissed about having put a small hole in the awning of our new caravan, but a bit of gorilla tape patched it up quickly (4 months later, and the tape is still in place, doing its job!). There’s some pretty cool silo art featuring the champion racehorse, Winx, which I just assumed was random, but have since learnt that Winx’s rider, Hugh Bowman, also featured on the silo, was born in Dunedoo. It was great to get out for a little adventure after having been in place for 7 weeks, even if it was brief.