Symbio Wildlife Park, 40 minutes south of Sydney CBD, is another of Sydney’s top wildlife parks which has a very diverse range of inhabitants from the unique indigenous animals of Australia to the exotic foreign animals of Africa and South America.
As well as the great variety of animals, Symbio also provides a unique and memorable experience with a number of potential encounters which allows you to get up close and personal with a select few of the parks gentle residents. Despite the additional fee, an encounter with either a Koala, Meerkat, Red Panda, Dingo or even the Cotton Top Tamarins and Common Marmosets is well worth the experience when you think that these opportunities are few and far between.
Willow the cutest young koala!
Besides from these specific animal encounters, the park also offers the opportunity for Happy Snap Encounters which enables visitors to take photos with either Koalas, Snakes or American Alligators. This opportunity was too hard to pass by and so we opted for photos with each of these animals as we were able to hold both the snake and the alligator. Unfortunately, in NSW holding a Koala is prohibited and so we weren’t quite able to pick one up, although we were able to get up close and rub its soft fury back.
As a park looking to provide an exceptional experience (which is the case), for those who wish not to pay the fees for the additional experiences, still do have the opportunity to have up close and personal encounters with Australia’s most iconic animal; the kangaroo. A large open grass sanctuary in the heart of the park is open for visitors to wonder around in amongst kangaroos and wallabies. With the opportunity to buy some food at the entrance, it really does get them interested if you are looking to really get up close for a cuddle and obviously that mandatory travel selfie. We as travel bloggers with a very active Instagram account and just people who generally love to spend time with animals, you can well imagine we spent a lot of time in this ground with Skippy and his mates. In amongst the mob of kangaroos is also the Kanga-goose, Franky, a goose who eats, sleeps and spends his days with the kangaroos generally believing he is one of them.
Within these grounds is also the famous Millie the wombat who is known throughout the country after a number of appearances on the national news. The 4year old who weighs in at a sturdy 20kg is an extremely good looking girl, looking all so cuddly with her immaculate coat of fur.
Another of Symbio’s interesting residents is Leo, a very rare Albino echidna. Found alone in poor health and away from his mother at a very young age, he would have struggled to survive in the wild and was therefore adopted by the park. With only approximately 10,000 in the wild they are extremely hard to come by in the wild and is therefore a hit with visitors.
As well as all the interaction opportunities, there are also a fair number of presentations where the respective keepers give a general informative talk about the specific animal, statistics and some interesting facts on their behaviour. At these talks and for the manageable and predictable animals, the keepers would also bring them up to the audience where we were able to get a close up look of the animals which is sometimes difficult when they are hiding away in their enclosures.