[Mel-Visitor]

When I lived in Adeliade, I remember visiting the Cleland wildlife park - does melbourne have any wildlife parks?

[glen]

hi m-V,

We have the Melbourne Zoo in the city, also there is the Werribee Open Plains Zoo which is just west of the city and it is like an African safari park with rhinos and zebras etc.

Then to the north east we have Heallesville Santuary which is an animal park focusing mainly on Australian animals.

There is another one on the way to Phillip Island but I have forgotten the name

They are the main ones.

There is some other farm animal parks like Chesterfield Farm where you can go and take kids to say hello to sheep, pigs and other farm animals.

What sort of animals did they have in the Cleland wildlife park?

Cheers, Glen

[Mel-Visitor]

Dingos, Koalas, Kangaroos - that sort of thing. I also remember one albino kangaroo completely white - he/she was which was a pretty unique site for me.

[hugodiaz]

Does anyone have some pictures. Searchin the internet from here can often lead to skewed results. Pictures would really be helpful. Wildlife parks really interest me, so please help me out.

Cheers.

[glen]

at the following website you will gets heaps of good photos:

http://www.zoo.org.au/
http://www.zoo.org.a.../factsheets.htm

[Mel-Visitor]

Nice links there glen

[PeterJMelb]

Hello all. I hope this has not been covered lately, if it has, then my apologies. May I mention the Royal Botanic Gardens at Cranbourne. I know it is not a wildlife park as such, but it is a hidden gem of a garden setting. It is part of the Royal Botanic Gardens in the city of Melbourne. It is themed in an Australian natural way, and is well worth a visit and is expanding all the time. The only downside I noticed was that the prices in the restaurant were a bit steep. (For me anyway). Concession entry for Seniors.
Best wishes.

[glen]

thanks Peter. I saw it on TV a month back and it looks like they have made some big improvements at Cranbourne RBG.

[Jared]

Adding my vote for the botanical gardens at Cranbourne. I spent a day walking around the surrounding bushland and saw a bandicoot, an echidna and lots of birds. The spring flowers are all out as well, so it was quite spectacular.

[glen]

I have never seen a wild bandicoot

[roentarre]

I heard rumour that the birds are migrating south to Victoria because of drought...

[glen]

which birds?

[roentarre]

The latest I heard were kingfishers. Yes, they are not that common in this part of Australia.

And I heard a report that there is this rare blue bird (I cannot remember the name anymore) spotted in Armadale lately.