This was my second time to Caversham Wildlife Park, over in Whiteman Park. Also home of the Woodland Reserve, Tram Rides, Motor Museum, Tractor Museum, Vintage Train Rides, Transport Museum…bit of a theme there. There are also some shops and trails.
We popped into the Wildlife Park, which contrary to the Perth Zoo, only has animals from Australia in it. Like an aquarium I guess. $27 for entry into the park which really only needs about 4 hours to get the most of. The only real problem with going to a wildlife park or zoo in a hot country, is that no animal willingly emerges from their cave. And the ones that are in shaded enclosures, are usually behind a fence.
A fairly sizeable amount of the park is dedicated to an open area where kangaroos can roam free and gawping tourists can take selfies with them and over feed them with the food at hand.
Three times a day they have the Farm Show. Held in a large sweatbox shed, this one was a display of sheep herding (with a sheep dog), sheep shearing, whip cracking, cow milking, lamb feeding. We didn’t stick around for the last two.
Nonetheless, it was OK. The sheep shearing and herding just didn’t compare to the expertise of the Yallingup Shearing Shed (I guess I’ve been spoiled). The guy running the show just kept sending the sheep dog round and round in the same direction and didn’t seem to be herding them at all. Once he did manage to get the sheep in, he dragged one out and sheared it, but he clearly struggled – that said, I know I couldn’t do any better!
They followed this with audience participated whip cracking. It was clear that I’d exceeded the target age for this show. It made me feel old.
Next to the Farm Show were the regular farm animals, including pick pocketing goats…cheeky bugger ate our park map, if it wasn’t for its linear layout we could have got lost!
After the farm show was the ‘Meet Wombat & Friends’. A sort of conveyor belt of animals out of their enclosures, and a giant wombat (or maybe they’re all giant…I’m not sure). It was a strange setup. Last time I was here, there were about 20 people. This time, hundreds….
