The Dubbo Zoo and tomorrows plans for Dubbo

Zac and Brent riding Rhino statues


We had a wonderful morning at the Dubbo zoo. Zachery and I walked most of the zoo and Brent kept bringing the car up to meet us at the next exhibit. It was a lovely, sunny, cool morning so it was perfect for walking around the dry dusty tracks. Zachery loved all of the animals and it was so brilliant to see him staring at them, searching for them and spotting them. Previous times when we have been to zoos for him he really hasn't understood what he was looking for in the seemingly empty enclosures, this time he was running for the next enclosure in excitment trying to guess what would be in there.

Zachery told us the colours of most of the animals and also identified a maority of them (excluding the really exotic variities of deer/buffalo etc).

Family photo infront of the Zebra's

Zachery got to feed the giraffes lots of carrotts, he loved it but he was crying while he was waiting in line and other people were fedding the giraffes because he thought "their bellys will be too full when its my turn" haha.

Our sweet little cherub, getting very sleepy by this point.

Daddy and Zaccy both cuddled the wallaby.

Zachery was blown away by the rhinos. He said "look theres a daddy rhino and he has his baby Zaccy rhino"

The Dubbo zoo was a great experience. It VERY spread out and makes you feel as though you are almost in the wild/the bush. It is wonderful to walk and you can tak eyour own food in. We packed a big picnic lunch and at it at the zoo. There is an enormous variety of animals to see and alot of interactive extras you can do - including feeding the giraffes - Its a beautiful family day out.

Zachery was very tired by 1pm so we decided to have a quick look in the gift shop and then head off. Zachery chose a Cheetah toy as he loves cats and he said it was like his grandmas cat, Jasper. Once we left the zoo we went into the Dubbo tourist information centre and picked up alot of information on the surrounding areas. We also picked up information on two places a friend of mine mentioned to me, the Japanese gardens in Dubbo city and the Wellington caves. We have decided we will visit both of these places tomorrow.

Tonight is our last night in the Big 4 caravan park as we are going to try to find a "Free Camp" in our Camps book to stay at tomorrow night so that we can stretch our money a little further for the trip. Hopefulyl we can find somewhere near by. We might go have a look around this afternoon and choose one for tomorrow.

First stop - Dubbo

So we arrived at Dubbo today. Not without a small hiccup along the way - The bike rack we fitted to the back of the van spun around and after ALOT of beeping, flashing of lights and waving from other cars we realised what had happened. The bike was now hanging upside down and the tyre was ground down to the rim and the rim is ground down and hacked apart too. It was dragging along for a majority of the half an hour we had been on the freeway, unfortunately. So we will have to replace it tomorrow afternoon. We left at 5:30am, before the sun was even up and we arrived at Dubbo Big 4 Caravan park around 1:30pm. We quickly plugged into power and water, set everything up properly and then walked down to play on their big "bouncy pillow". It was absolutely amazing! So much fun! We had such a blast, so did Zac. We all jumped on it for about an hour until we were exhausted.

Zachery enjoying the bouncy pillow

Zachery and Daddy on the bouncy pillow

Dubbo Big 4 is a beautiful caravan park it is absolutely full of trees and huge grassy areas. There are beautiful, bright coloured birds everywhere, a recreation room with a huge projection movie screen where they play a movie every afternoon at 4:30pm. The amenities are beautiful (although we mostly use our caravan ensuite) and there is even a heated pool and a childrens park. In the recreation room there is a kitchen and a table tennis table also.



The childrens park at Dubbo Big 4

The Movie screen in the recreation room

We have settled down in the van now as its absolutely freezing outside already. We have the heating blasting away so its toasty warm inside thankfully. Were going to have showers and pop down to the Recreation room at 4:30pm to see if the daily movie is a kids movie, if Zac is interested in it then we will stay and watch it, if not then we will come back to the van and do some craft.

Tomorrow morning we will be waking up bright and early and heading to Dubbo Zoo. We have heard it is quiet a big walk so we are going to take the pram so Zac can rest whenever he wants to. We are also going to take a lovely picnic lunch and lots of water to drink, hats, sunscreen etc. Once we finish at the zoo we will go to the tourist information centre and get the information for a few places our friend told us about which we now want to see (I will write about them tomorrow once I get the information on them).

Take care everyone! Were missing our friends and family alot already but we are also having lots of fun (although Brent is so warn out its only 3:30 in the afternoon and he has fallen asleep on the bed having a grandpa nap haha).

We begin our trip on Monday 20th June.

The medical stuff I had to sort out before we could head off accross Australia is all ironed out and done. Yay! So that means our time, is once again our own. We are free to leave whenever we want to leave. We have decided to spend two weeks on the Central coast before we leave, so we will be leaving on Monday 20th of June 2011.

I am so so excited! We are heading accross to Dubbo first, were going to take our little boy Zac to the Western Plains Zoo, once we get there and will probrably spend two nights there. We will most likely spend one night in the free camp, the first night we arrive in Dubbo. This way we can just either tow our van and park with it at the zoo or we can book into the caravan park the next morning, then go to the zoo without the van. This will save us a little money! I love free camps they make me feel so thrifty.

We managed to get alot done yesterday. We bought so much of the stuff we need for the ute and to add to Brents tool kit for the trip. We bought Jerry cans and the holders to attach them to our ute or van (havnt figured that out yet). We bought a bunch of oil, coolant, transmission fluid etc. We are hoping that we can type up a reasonable price list and do a bit of work for people along the way, just simple jobs like caravan bearings, car services etc.

We have alot to do today. We are going to get spare oil and fuel filters for the car,too and a spare fan belt (just incase!) Were also going to attach those jerry can holders, try and attach our air compressor, fill up our gas bottle (we have two but we will fill the second one right before we go because its still got a little in it). Try and find a bike rack for the rear of the van and much more. I cant believe how much you have to do to  prepare for a trip like this (if you're as "anal" as I am and want absolutely every base covered).