A Visit to Wildlife Habitat in Port Douglas

One of our excursions when visiting Port Douglas was to go to Wildlife Habitat. It was the first stop on our tour, so we were part of a large group with a tour guide. Wildlife Habitat was a lot more like a zoo than I expected, and it has been years since I've visited a zoo. The reason it reminded me of a zoo is it is kind of sectioned that way. You walk around outside and see the animals in the different areas. BUT. It is very different in one way. 

Many of the animals are loose in the areas you walk through, so they can come right up to you. In zoos I've visited, peacocks are usually loose. But here, an emu was loose, kangaroos were loose, wallabies were loose, etc. It was quite an experience! Read on for my pros and cons of Wildlife Habitat.

The Pros

1. We had Morning Tea before walking around which was nice.

This little guy walking right by us as we were having our Morning Tea.

2. There is a guide at the Wildlife Habitat who leads the group around the first part and tells a few anecdotes and information about some of the animals, which was very interesting.
This cassowary enjoying some fruit for breakfast.

We were told this guy can get quite loud and has two girlfriends!

3. We were told by the Wildlife Habitat guide that instead of zoos where animals are in cages and people walk around freely, it's kind of the opposite where the animals have room to roam around which I thought was cool.

4. We got to see many animals well known in Australia from cassowaries and koalas to kangaroos and wallabies.

5. We were able to get close to many of the animals such as the birds and even pet the wallabies. They were so cute!

The Cons

1. If you are a little skittish around certain animals, you might feel a little wary in certain areas as many of the animals are loose. However, it's easy to just avoid or walk around these areas. Also, I didn't have any of the animals come up to me. It was just easy to get close. Animals that were loose included some birds, kangaroos, wallabies, and an emu. In fact, the emu (these can be about 6 ft tall) starting following one family who asked our tour guide if that was ok, he said yes, and then the emu started following him instead which was a pretty funny sight!

2. We weren't told at the beginning you could feed the kangaroos and wallabies and didn't realize until we saw people doing it. I did see kangaroo food in the gift shop at the end.

I really enjoyed Wildlife Habitat. It was a highlight of the trip, seeing animals Australia is known for. I didn't expect to hear so many interesting things about the animals and see them so up close. I would definitely go back and would recommend to anyone who likes animals.