A daytime visit to the Moonlit Sanctuary

I love Sundays. They used to mean sleep ins and breakfasts in cafes and watching movies with BWB (aka my hubby). Actually for a long time they meant working, (ah the joys of retail). But on weekends off Sundays became the most indulgent day of the week.  Now the sleep ins are a wonderful memory, and the breakfasts are, more often than not, homemade (but still delicious).  Movies, when they happen, are often interrupted.  But non of this matters.  Sundays have possibly become even more special because they mean spending the day as a family.

Today we went to the Moonlit Sanctuary in Pearcedale. It's about 50mins from the city, and about 15 from our house so I don't know why we haven't gone earlier.

I was really impressed. The very friendly keepers do regular (about hourly) presentations with the animals, and there is the opportunity to hold koalas and snakes (errr... personally no to either).
There's info on each animal, including their name, fun facts and their endangered status. It's not an overloading amount, enough to give a good opportunity to talk about each animals unique characteristics with older kids.

 

 

The highlight for us, and for Bug, was the wallaby and kangaroo walk. You follow a bush path with your bag of food and before you know it beautiful little wallabies and grey kangaroos creep out to see what treats you have for them. They are tame enough to eat right from your hand, and happy to stick about for a wee pat too.
I would defiantly go back. A good day out for the whole family.

The facts and figures:
Best for 1-100 years. Ideally want your kids to be old enough to be interested in the animal.
The dirt tracks are good, but possibly not suitable for all prams.  Taking a baby is not a hardship if you have an off road pram or a carrier.
$17 per adult. $8.50 for children. Under 4s free. Family's (2+2) $45. Food and hands on animal encounters extra.
Plenty of parking.
Cafe fairly standard for this sort of attraction. Coffee, tea, hot food, muffins etc all available but nothing too gourmet. Pearcedale has a nice looking cafe and a very good fish and chip place minutes away if you fancy other options.
Toilets in OK condition. Forgot to check if a baby change was available (oops) but I would assume it would be.

I couldn't help but take a pic of this little swamp hen, you've got to love a baby whose feet are bigger than him!

*K*