When it comes to entertaining guests and showing them around what ever city I end up in I try to incorporate art or end up at a destination I know will entertain them, but more importantly, myself.
This surprisingly took me awhile to think of. It's been high on my list for awhile and my brothers kids liking dinosaurs it rally was a perfect fit. This amazing facility is choc filled with dinosaurs for them and larger than life sculptures for me.
The Australian Reptile Park has a fair few things that could be considered BIG Things.
Most people will chalk these down to 'touist attractions' or simply oversized sculptures since they're promotional and require a fee to see. The BIG Frilled-neck Lizard is the only sculpture at the Somersby Reptile Park that you can photograph without having to pay an admission fee
I explored the place extensively. Here's the highlights!
Once inside you're going to be met with a few dinos which begins the parks 'Dino hunt'
The dinosaurs exited the wooden crate and roared, walked and danced their hearts our for 2 minutes before returning. I didn't capture this on video but here's a video of them roughly doing the same thing during a mid day talk they interrupted.
After the first event we had lunch where I found my first couple of items on my list of things to visit.
The first is a very large frog. I'd come across pictures of him before and while I know he was once hosted at an Airport to raise money for frog conservation I cant recall which airport. Brisbane or Perth perhaps.
None of the murals were tagged. They appeared to be the work of two different artists and hope I come across their creators in future.
Pterodactyl |
Raptor |
T Rex |
Baby Triceratops |
Adult Triceratops |
There's all sorts of small sculpture throughout the newest section of the park dedicated to frog conservation and you'll find a tidy frog water fountain within the parks gift store.
Between your entry and the cafe you're going to have two amazing exhibits and each room contains a wonderful sculpture to photograph. I'll start with the Croc Pharaoh. I'm not sure how long it takes from him to activate but his speech goes for 2 minutes. You'll enter his toom via the amazing Crocodiles mouth
Next you have a room dedicated to creepy crawlies. The star is a 1.5m BIG Funnel Web Spider. The funnel web spider was a star of the mid day show and the park keepers milked a spider for the crowd along with information for every joe bloke to capture and donate spiders to the park for the National venom program. If you watch closely you'll see the spiders arms moving.
For lunch we indulged with our dine and discover vouchers and let the kids play on the playground that was, of course, reptile themed.
I already have one of these koalas in my BIG Thing gallery. You'll find the BIG Koala in Gundagai to be a popular stop for tourist and kitchy photo collectors and I've discovered these koalas are very common at wildlife and tourist parks.
Next time! We did pull over on the side of the road to try capture him with a landscape lens. It's not the best photograph but if I never make it back there this will have to do.
Ploddy was created as an attraction for the original Reptile park and was originally a poop color. He's been repainted and relocated in 1996 when the Wildlife park relocated. He was constructed by BIG Thing hero Ken Mayfield.
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