The Australian Reptile Park

On our way north today we encountered a sign that pointed to ‘The Australian Reptile Park’. We only intended to drive 100 ks or so today and it was early in the afternoon so we thought that we’d have an explore. We’re really glad we did! The Park was set up in the 1960s and has had an up and down history,  but since the Sydney Olympics in 2000 has grown from strength to strength.

We saw all sorts of animals, and as Max said, ‘they’ve got heaps more than just reptiles”. It was quite different from Gorge Wildlife Park in South Australia (see previous post) which was great as we could have a totally different experience. 


The photos tell most of the story I think so here they are….

a tepu from Mexico

This adult turtle ‘Libby’ was found at the centre’s front door in 2009 in a cardboard box with a ‘Please Look After Me’ note inside. It is believed that someone had handraised Libby from a hatchling as she is very comfortable with people, and they had just found it too hard to look after her in the long run.

At the end of the ‘Reptile Show’ I volunteered to be the volunteer but once up there started to get a little nervous as to what I was volunteering for. This was not helped by the crowd “Look how big it is!!”  “Look at the teeth on that!” as well as Harry’s apprehensive stare (before the creature came out of the bag by the way. What a stirrer he is …). Well it was big! So heavy and muscly, smooth and yet rough at the same time. Looking at these photos makes me squirm!

getting a little nervous here...

this wombat just loved Max and kept trying to get him to pay some attention!

Elvis the BIG croc

do you believe that I held this??

As I went into the “Spider House'” all I could think of was my friend Nick who absolutely loathes spiders. He would have hated this!





The reptile centre had a room that reminded me of a ‘Scooby Doo’ episode, with ‘Tutenkarcroc’, lighting and sound effects and various mummified creatures around the place.


This park was well worth the visit. We found that they are the only centre in Australia (and presumably the world) that milks funnel web spiders each day for their venom. This is then sent to laboratories that inject the venom into meat rabbits whose white blood cells are later harvested to produce funnel web anti venom.