Spent a morning at Symbio, the wildlife park south of Sydney, ended up patting kangaroos until my arm got tired. One thing to clear up first, it’s in Helensburgh, not near Kiama, Kiama’s a lot further south, this one sits between Sydney and Wollongong, close to Stanwell Park and Bald Hill lookout.
Took us about two and a half hours to get through the whole park at a pretty relaxed pace. Grabbed lunch near the entrance after, simple stuff, burgers, fish and chips, nothing fancy, and had a very bold bird try to steal food off my plate without even asking.
Feeding the kangaroos
Bought a bag of roo food right at the entrance and walked straight into the open kangaroo area with it. Sat there feeding and patting them for ages, they’re so used to people, didn’t flinch once with my hand in their face every ten seconds. A sheep in the same area nearly got me too, walked up looking all sweet then just grabbed the whole food bag out of my hand before I could stop it.
Koalas, wombats and the quokkas
Saw the koalas near the front first, a few of them, one even wandered right up close to us. The wombats were asleep the whole time we were there, apparently they’re nocturnal so that tracks. Walked down to the far end for the quokkas and they were actually really lively, still working through their breakfast when we got there mid morning.
Wanted to do a proper quokka encounter or hold a koala but both need booking ahead, found out the hard way that sessions fill up fast, didn’t manage to get a spot since I hadn’t booked in advance.
The rest of the animals
Wandered past cheetahs, lemurs, a good spread of parrots, emus, even some random silkie chickens just wandering around loose. Kept catching the keeper talks too, they run roughly every half hour and the park’s small enough that I’d be halfway through looking at one enclosure and still make it across in time for the next one.
The splash park and playground
Didn’t bring swimmers, wish we had, there’s a proper water play area and a shaded playground right next to it that would’ve been perfect for cooling off.
What I’d do differently
Paid $44 for adult entry at the gate, kids were $29. If I go back I’m booking the koala or quokka encounter ahead of time instead of hoping for a same day spot. On the way back toward Sydney I stopped at Stanwell Park for a bit, the beaches around there are a nice spot to catch the sunset before heading home.
Getting there
We caught the train to Helensburgh station then had to figure out a connecting bus, the whole trip ended up taking close to two hours each way. The buses weren’t frequent and Central’s platforms had me confused for a bit, kept checking Google Maps the whole way just to make sure we hadn’t missed anything. The bus driver couldn’t have been nicer though, dropped me right at the entrance and chatted the whole way, turned out he’d lived in China for a few months once, funny thing to learn from a small town bus driver out here. Coming back we waited almost half an hour for the bus, and we were the only one standing at the stop, so I’d say go early and head back well before mid afternoon if you’re relying on public transport, because the services really do thin out later in the day.
Going in the school holidays
The NSW spring school holidays run 28 September to 9 October this year, good timing if you’re after a day out mixing animals with a splash park. For more animal outings have a look through our zoos and wildlife parks list.