In January 2025 I drove from Brisbane to Sydney with an included stop at the Walkabout Wildlife Sanctuary, located just outside of Gosford on the Central Coast of NSW. Here, I volunteered for two weeks with very cute Native Australian Animals (and some others too). At the time I was considering doing a course in zookeeping and this would have given me practical credits, but I also wanted to experience animals close up and their care for them. You never know, I might have rescued animals in my backyard one day when Im old! Ideally all animals should be wild and free and perhaps we shouldn’t interfere at all, but as humans we have empathy and dont like to see animals doing it tough and in pain.
I definitely learnt alot and did alot during my time there. The biggest tasks in looking after animals is meal prep and cleaning. Followed by feeding and cleaning and that is the circle of life. Luckily this meal prep was mostly fruit and vegetables with some meat prep required for the meateaters – but I didnt have to do any of that…… except when I helped feed a snake a dead rat….
I booked this program through Go – Eco again and there were volunteers there from the local community, students and tourists, It was really great to get to know the other volunteers and some staff there, with some really funny conversations of just LYF, as we work as a team of two. My accommodation was in a cabin and I shared it with a girl from Spain and in the second week I had it to myself. The weather was hot and we had really long tiring days, which I measured walking of 10-15 km per day, so I was pretty tired by the end of the day. In the evening we would just chill, I would work on my International Diploma of Volunteering or we could go into the Sanctuary for a sunset walk around the animals. A few days were personal days off which I used to go to the local shops, play golf in Mangrove Mountain, the Australian Reptile Park.
Its really hard for me to write a ‘story’ of really cool experiences so I am going to dot point them (with some not so good ones).
- Getting to meet Bilbys up close. Id never seen a beloved Australian Bilby before and the ones I got to meet were quite smelly and hissy, suffer from tip of ear sunburn problems and scratches from fights with each-other (males picking on the females it seemed), so I ended up not being a bilby fan.
- We had a wild-rescued tawny frogmouth who kept all the staff company from his perch – such a cool bird, and it looks like its always judging you.
- Naughty Parrots – these parrots come from pet ownership so they all talk words but they are all a bit crazy and some are aggressive. Can you imagine being a bird stuck in the same spot being made to talk? Im definitely not a fan of pet birds.
- Hearing the eclectus parrot make a noise exactly like a ringing phone.
- A rescued blind baby wombat who lost his mother in a car accident and was learning how to navigate his new home environment.
- Seeing different types of wallabies and kangaroos – Reds, Greys and Wallaroo Kangaroos and Agile, Bush tail, Pademelon, Parma, Red Necked and Tamma Wallabies.
- The challenge of harnessing alpacas (and a goat)
- Getting to see small native mice and a pygmy possum close up and see how amazingly small they are.
- Feeding a sugar mix to the sugar glider and getting to pat its super silk coat. They are so super cute!!!
- Hanging out with servals and dingoes.
- Throwing boomerangs (a first for me!)
- Waking up to large delicate spiderwebs that were spun overnight (outside) and visitors not wanting them disturbed or removed even though they were over entrances.
- Looking after birds is very difficult. I was scrubbing bird sh*t off everything in the exhibit and scooping up as much seed and seed husks (bird food), and disposing of it, to limit the spread of diseases. The birds, yes they are pretty to look at, are just never grateful or friendly for what you do for them LOL. In fact they will crap on you, given an opportunity. Birds are much more enjoyable wild and flying free, where they should be (like all other animals).
- I never realised guinea pigs made those adorable noises.
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