Adelaide Day 5 - Cleland Wildlife Park & Warrawong Sanctuary

For once our day started without bacon, eggs and mushrooms. While it has been nice to have an aussie breakfast, Anna has finally got sick of them. (Pies too) We decided to take a stroll to one of Adelaides main shopping district, to locate a place for breakfast. After visiting the tourist information office we were directed down Rundle St where we were told there were lots of great breakfast places. Turned out there was only about 3, and they didn't look too appealing. We chose the least 'dodgy' of the 3 and ordered our food. I had some traditional english fare, the crumpet, however it was really soggy, which is not a good sign. Anna chose something equally bad, and headed back to our car to begin the real fun. More animal parks.

First on the list was Cleland Wildife Park, a little gem we discovered in a local tourist book. It was located high in the Adelaide Hills. The roads leading up there were pretty narrow and windy, clearly sign posted to slow down. Anna declined to acknowledge the signs, and I had several heart attacks along the way, which caused our first argument outside of an airport.

The park itself was pretty similar to some of the other parks we had visited, with hand feeding of Kangaroos and wallabies. However this time we were able to get up close and personal with the Koala, and Anna even had the chance to cuddle a Koala.

They also had a great noctural animal building where we got to see one of our favorite animals the Bilby.

We also saw a variety of other nocturnal animals.

Our evening was spent at Warrawong Wildlife Sanctuary, a sister site of Little River (we visited in Melbourne). The sanctuary consists of 5 seperate regions which each house animals native to the area. Warrawong used to be open farm land, but was converted 30 years ago into a wildlife haven. We saw many different species there, including possums, platypus, bilbies, potaroos and koalas. There was actually a prize for the person who spotted the first koala high in the trees, and I won :) We were treated to 2 free animal chocolate bars.

While we had a good time, it was a little difficult to get any good photos, or see all the animals, as we were in a fairly large group of people who made a lot of noise. (especially the kids)

After our tour we headed back to the city. Anna had discovered an Indian restaurant that she wanted to try, Jasmin. It turned out to be really good food, and restored a little of our faith in Adelaide restaurants.

Anna's Aussie Tidbits:

If you want to have close encounter with animals, ask for a private tour. Yes, you're paying more. But you will have a totally different experience, a much better experience. If you're spending so much money coming to Australia, you may as well just shell out a little more for an experience of a lifetime.