The Melbourne zoo has to be at the top of your list of things to do in Melbourne with kids. If you’ve read any of my other posts, you’ll know that if there’s a zoo or aquarium in the city we went, you can guarantee that I’ve been there. What this means, according to my Dad, is that I am a Zoo Guru and my opinion should count. I’ve actually been to the Melbourne Zoo two times, and why I like is it’s a good combination of being able to see the animals and the zoo giving the animals a decent living environment. You can rarely have both, so there’s always a bit of a trade off, and the Melbourne Zoo seems to have found a happy medium. The Zoo’s open everyday of the year and kids are free during school holidays – brilliant! You can check out how to get to the zoo, opening hours, exhibits and all the rest on the Melbourne Zoo website.
If you’re in Melbourne with kids for a week or more, perhaps you might be able to convince them to take you to Werribee Open Zoo, this is much further away, like about 50km and takes about 350-45 minutes and this is a zoo where the animals are happier than humans. It’s an open zoo so it’s exactly that, quite open with lots of space for the animals to roam around so it’s much harder to see the animals up close. There’s a bus safari you can take, it broke down on the way and we had to for 15 minutes before they go it going again. Stink. This is a zoo where you take a picnic (the food is a bit rude at Werribee Open Zoo), and have good fun not just watching the animals, but walking around and having a good play. It’s a nice morning or afternoon out, but if you want to see animals up close, probably not for you. No thanks to the absolutely useless “visitor staff” who couldn’t tell us where to get a taxi back, what time the buses went back and wouldn’t even call a taxi for us – poor to say the least. They were more interested in reading the newspaper than doing their job, which is supposedly to help visitors. They were no help – thumbs down. I did a silent but violent fart in front of their kiosk before they left so that’ll serve them right!
The Sealife Melbourne Aquarium is ho-hum, it’s basically in the city so I guess worth a visit but I wouldn’t bother going if it’s not within 10 minutes walk of where you’re staying. It’s pretty small, compared to some aquariums I’ve been to, but not bad. I’ve come to the conclusion that Asia has the best aquariums, Oceania has the best zoo’s. Oceania typically has more space so that makes sense with the zoos, but can’t figure out the aquariums. Hit me up if you know why Asia tends to have bigger and better aquariums.
The Melbourne Museum, also in the inner city, is ok, basically a bunch of dead animals and insects which isn’t really my cup of apple juice. Saw some Dino bones but I’m well over my Dino obsession so wasn’t too interested in that. I went with my Dad and Auntie, so we still had a good time and did some silly things to keep me amused.
Almost forgot, took a trip out to Booran Reserve Playground, this was pretty good, but boy was it busy, like being in China busy, I’ve never seen a playground outside Asia this busy. Unless you have a car or are going somewhere nearby, give it a miss.
We also did a helicopter ride which was super cool, I talked to my Dad the whole time through the intercom and felt like a real pilot – totally awesome!
Anyway, loads to do in Melbourne with kids, so don’t worry about getting bored here.
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