It just popped into my head out of nowhere, I really wanted to pat a wombat! I scrolled through Instagram for ages and found people mentioning – The Funky Farm, 209 Coolart Rd, Hastings VIC 3915, you can only book in advance, there’s no buying tickets on the spot! $30 per person.
In short: this place is so kid-friendly! Lots of interaction the whole way through, a real immersive experience. There’s a guide who leads one group the entire time, taking you to meet each little animal one by one and explaining as you go, and every animal gets enough time for you to interact and take photos with it.
We joined one of the farm’s tours, fixed number of people, fixed time. When it’s time, you just drive yourself to the farm and meet up there. Everyone gets a fully immersive experience, guided and explained the whole way through, it’s ridiculously kid-friendly! Small but excellent inside, not tiring at all, ten thousand thumbs up!
Funky Farm was the surprise of this Mornington trip. I thought it would just be another unremarkable farm, my two kids and I aren’t naturally big animal lovers, so I went in with more of a “well, we’re here, might as well tick it off” attitude. BUT! It turned out not to be an ordinary farm at all. Even me, someone who doesn’t love animals, found the guiding and the interaction way too interesting.
Meeting the animals
In the bird area, little birds fly onto your head or your shoulders. The parrots are so pretty, and they’re not scared of people at all, they fly right onto your hand or your shoulder to eat, and the staff give you the food to hand out. The kids were absolutely over the moon!
You can’t touch or hug the koalas, but you can walk right up close for photos, right up to the tree it’s lying in to watch it eat eucalyptus leaves. This was honestly the most active koala I’ve ever seen, going back and forth, back and forth, almost like it wanted to get close to us too, noticing every time someone walked over. That’s not the farm being fussy about it, by the way — koalas are protected under Victoria’s Wildlife Act, so no legitimate park in this state lets you touch or hold one, even though a few other states do.
You can pat the wombat, snap photos, it just keeps eating the whole time in front of you.
There’s a spot specifically for feeding kangaroos, put corn kernels in your palm and the kangaroo will come find you on its own, and you can pat it too! Most of the kangaroos that come to be fed are joeys, and they slowly eat the food in your palm, all very well-behaved.
There are also lots of reptiles, snakes, lizards, small crocodiles are all touchable. Everything on the farm is touchable except two animals: emus and koalas.
The part that surprised us
Maybe it’s because our guide was the owner himself, anyway, you could deeply feel how well he knew and understood this group of animals, and you could sense he genuinely cares about raising and protecting them. He was also great with kids, a bit funny, and good at taking photos. Because it’s a small-group booking-only system, everything felt orderly.
My two kids, who have never touched or fed an animal in their lives, touched a small crocodile, touched a lizard, touched a wombat, touched a dingo, and this time even tried letting a snake go across their body. This mother was stunned.
Worth it? Absolutely
Even though it’s a very small farm, it never felt boring at all. Since I haven’t been to the other well-known zoos online, I can’t compare side by side, I can only share how this one felt, and it felt great. My kids’ favourite zoo, such a fun day!
Totally worth it! We’ll definitely go again. Once the kids are a bit older they’ll be able to follow the explanations better.
We’d already seen lots of wild wombats at Wilsons Prom, but for legal and hygiene reasons, better to just pat them somewhere it’s actually allowed, like this one.
Practical bits
Booking Only! You have to book! Book ahead on the official website. For our family, 2 adults, 2 kids it came to $101 total. For transport, you can take the little train from Flinders Street Station in the city to Frankston, the last stop, then call an Uber the rest of the way to the farm. If you drive yourself, there’s a free car park right at the farm entrance with plenty of space~
A little bit silly, but fun! The scenery on the drive there is pretty nice too~ it’s all farmland.
Lastly, on location — the farm is on the Mornington Peninsula, and after the tour, heading to a winery for a drink, or the beach for a play and an ice cream, both make a great second stop. Groups fill up fast over the Victorian school holidays, so lock in a date as soon as you know yours. If you want to weigh it up against other hands-on days out, our Animal Farms and Zoos list has a few more, including Collingwood Children’s Farm and Myuna Farm.