Werribee Open Range Zoo (Werribee South)
Why travel thousands of kilometres when a taste of African adventure is at your doorstep. Only 30 minutes from Melbourne, Werribee Open Range Zoo is full of amazing animals living in a wide, open savannah. Discover grazing rhinos, giraffes and zebras, see cheeky monkeys and cheetahs at play and get close to a pride of lions. You can even meet a family of hippos in the new Kubu River Hippos Experience.
Birthday Parties
What better time to let your kids go wild than at a birthday party. Werribee Open Range Zoo offers two kinds of adventure-packed party packages - complete with a feast in an African Hut and a tour of discovery that can take in lions, gorillas, hippos and more. Make your child's birthday one to remember.
Party Details and Costs
Opening Hours:
Open 9am-5pm every day of the year.
Cost:
Admission Prices
For a discount check out Small Ideas
Review:
A lovely destination for the family and the fun starts even before you go inside the zoo. Have a look in the boxes along the main entrance path and see what is being shipped to Madagascar or play in the lovely Play Space with huge wooden animals to climb over including an elephant, giraffe, zebra and gorilla.
The Safari tour around the open range area in the safari truck is very interesting and you should be able to get up close and personal to some of the animals. The queues can seem a bit horrendous but a large number of people can fit in the truck and so the wait time wasn't too bad. On the tour you should see zebras, camels, rhinos, antelopes, bison, ostriches and giraffes.
There are a number of walking routes to see the remaining animals which most kids should be able to handle. The main circle route is the Pula Reserve Trail which is 1000m long and passes through an African village, vervet monkeys, lions, meerkats, African wild dogs, hippos, cheetahs and gorillas. Make sure you don't miss the Dig Pit where kids can dig for dinosaur bones.
There is also an Australian Journey trail which is 500m and includes kangaroos, emus, brolgas and the Eastern Barred bandicoot. This trail can be extended to the Wirribi River Trail (another 1000m) which has a river viewing platform on the Werribee River.
During the hot weather there is a hippo themed water splash play area near the hippo enclosure under shade sails which is great fun for all the kids. Even when the weather is cooler and there is no water, the kids have fun climbing over the hippos.
The zoo has a permanent exhibition of baby hippo, zebra, African elephant, White rhino and lion sculptures created by renowned artists Gillie and Marc.
If you are a regular visitor to zoos then it might be worth being a Zoos Victoria Member which provides unlimited entry to Healesville Sanctuary, Melbourne Zoo and Werribee Open Range Zoo for 12 months.
Photos:
Location
K Road, Werribee South 3030 Map
✆ (03) 9731 9600
Email Enquiry
Web Links
→ www.zoo.org.au/WerribeeOpenRangeZoo
→ Zoos Victoria on Facebook
