Dubbo Western Plains Zoo

Dubbo is a town in Central Western NSW that quite possibly has lots of attractions but I confess I've mostly only ever been there to see the zoo. Dubbo is a town of around 40,000 people and several herds of animals at its Western Plains Zoo.

I've long been attracted to tigers. Their grace and their power somehow mingle together to form a masterful creation.

Getting there

Since a heck of a lot of people seem to stumble on this page from all over the world while looking for info on Dubbo, here's a bit more background on how to get there! In the car it takes round about five hours from Sydney to do it non-stop.

It's also possible to fly to Dubbo from Sydney.

Driving tips

If you're making the drive from Sydney, definitely stop and have a bit of a look at some of the places around the Blue Moutains like Katoomba or Blackheath. There's lots of awe-inspiring lookouts, long and short bushwalks and cosy places to have a meal, or to stop over on the way or on the way back and enjoy a more leisurely journey.

At the very least, don't forget to "stop, revive, survive" and have a short break somewhere around half way.

Some other tips worth bearing in mind. Since Dubbo is more or less in a straight line west of Sydney, if you leave Sydney by car in the mid afternoon you'll be staring straight into the sun the whole way. Travelling in the morning is more comfortable if possible. Also, if you are travelling at night, watch out for ice (and even snow) on the roads in winter time in some areas on the way to dubbo like Bathurst and Orange.

My favourite - the Tigers

This tiger seemed to have a fairly keen interest in the turtle swimming around nearby...

How long to allow at the Dubbo Zoo

Once you're at Western Plains Zoo, you'll probably want to have more or less a full day there, or at least several hours.

The zoo entry ticket actually gives you two days worth of visiting, so if you're able to visit Dubbo on two consecutive days that's ideal. This can be a good way to catch the animals at different times of day or to go back and get a second chance to spot any animals that were a bit too sleepy or too far away on the first inspection.

Why is Dubbo Zoo special?

Instead of the animals being in cages as in most zoos, they're in open fields which are separated from the (tasty) public by moats and grassy mounds. You can still get fairly close to the animals, as testified by the pictures.

For the camera-literate people reading, all the photos here are taken with a pretty standard Canon camera with a 35-70mm lens so nothing too fancy in the zoom department was required to get these great snaps. (Newer photos on some subsequent pages were taken with a 75-300mm zoom.)

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