July 5

Decided to start the day by visiting the local Farmers’ Market – held on the 1st & 3rd Saturdays of each month. This was a real eye-opener – nothing like the crummy markets in and around Wollongong. The fruit and vegetables were outstanding both in quality and price. We were a bit disappointed we weren’t on our way home because we could have really stocked up. Lots of apples from around Orange, citrus fruits from Narromine, potatoes, pumpkins etc etc. It was obviously very popular with locals going by the huge number present. There were stalls selling the usual jams and pickles and even bags of sheep dung!
We arrived at Western Plains Zoo about 9.30 and didn’t leave until six hours later! We had the choice of walking or driving and chose ... to drive! There were other options – you could hire a bike ($15 / 4 hrs) or an electric cart ($65 / 3 hrs). The road circuit is 6 km while there’re 15 km of walking trails! Every 100 – 200m there’s a stop for the next animal enclosure.
The whole zoo is absolutely excellent. The enclosures allow a good view of almost every animal – some you can get quite close to. We could almost have reached out and patted the zebras – they were feeding inside the electric fence at the bottom of the bank we were standing on. The lions and tigers were a little more distant but the zoom lens on the digital camera allowed us to get up pretty “close”.
In front of the kiosk area are a number of small islands inhabited by spider monkeys, ring-tailed lemurs and black & white ruffed lemurs. Their antics were very entertaining – we could have sat and watched them for hours!
The good thing about the ticketing system for the zoo is that it entitles you to go back the next day free of charge. There are a few things we missed so we may well take advantage of that tomorrow.