Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary

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After a slightly late get up (9-ish) and breakfast in the hotel room to save money (eating out in Gold Coast is shockingly expensive) we were met by the same taxi driver as the previous day to take us to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.


Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary Review

Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary is a fairly large zoo, what I would consider medium sized, and I spent around five hours there for a slow, relaxed visit. The zoo has over 100 species, and a list can be seen here. Although there is nothing that is really super rare like at David Fleay, there are a few unusual species and many that were new for me. The entrance area to the zoo isn’t so impressive with a huge area taken up by the ‘photo with a koala’ area that had a large area for people to queue up and lots of rather typical plain enclosures holding the koalas. Before I continue with my review, here is the zoo map, which may be helpful when following my review.

The zoo is divided in half by a road with a tunnel going under it, the entrance to the zoo is in the smaller section on one side of the road, however when I visited I decided to explore this section last and I headed to the other side of the road. On the way though I passed through a rather nice ‘forest fringes’ aviary with a mixture of unusual species.

The tunnel under the road has paintings all along the walls of various Australian landscapes filled with animals, including a Thylacine hidden in the painting. The tunnel is also shared by the train that goes around the zoo. The other side of the zoo has several large enclosures as well as numerous smaller ones spread out fairly randomly around. There is also a large lake with numerous wild birds and many eels which I think are also wild and are fed as a regular feeding by the zoo. There are also several pockets of native vegetation with ponds and streams around the zoo with large numbers of wild Eastern Water Dragons all around including in many enclosures, and a few of the ponds also had wild Snake-necked Turtles. I also saw quite a few nice birds in a large area of forest with their ‘forest walk’ however I did this at the end of my visit so I will discuss that then.

After passing a playground area, aboriginal dance show area (I didn’t see the show), and a wild Brush Turkey kicking the leaf litter across a path to its mound, the first animal enclosure I saw was a fairly standard, though perfectly good, Tasmanian Devil enclosure (one of several throughout the zoo) though with a less than good sign. I then continued to one of the larger enclosures in this part of the zoo, the walkthrough kangaroo enclosure which was divided into three sections, the largest being for Eastern Grey Kangaroos but also with a section for Red Kangaroos and Emus, and a very nice wallaby walkthrough with a mixture of Swamp, Tammar, and Red-necked Wallabies and Brush-tailed Rock wallaby.

There was a volunteer in here who located a hiding rock-wallaby for me, pointed out a swamp wallaby joey, and also pointed out that the fake rockwork was made up of cars and containers covered in concrete. Quite effective actually and a rather attractive exhibit compared to the kangaroo sections.

Also going through the Grey Kangaroo walkthrough was a smallish stream with some rocks and this had a large number of Water Dragons of varying ages. Also around this side of the zoo were the freshwater and saltwater crocodile enclosures, the tree kangaroo enclosures, and a temporary enclosure for Southern Cassowary. If it wasn’t for the fact that it was just temporary I would be criticising the cassowary enclosure much more, being little more than a small paddock, but the area where it usually is was being redeveloped. This area is also supposed to have a very large aviary and it’s a shame I didn’t get to see it but it looks like it will be an interesting new development (more information in the picture of the sign) and the Goodfellow’s Tree Kangaroo area was still on show with several tree kangaroos spread over several enclosures.


Continuing on from this side of the zoo I then passed through a forested area which is where the ‘Tree Top Challenge’ is which is a climbing course in the trees though it seemed to be closed that day with no one on it. Also leading off from here was the ‘forest walk’ mentioned above, which I did at the end of my visit. In this area though were two aviaries, one with Grass Owls, and a larger one containing Grey-headed Flying Fox, Koala, Bush Stone-curlew and Tawny Frogmouths. On the other side of this forest area were many more enclosures and I first passed through the area with fewer, larger enclosures including Dingoes, Wombats, Echidnas, Quokkas, more Koalas, Merino Sheep and sheep show stage, as well as a mixed walk-through aviary with various parrots and cockatoos. Also in here was a very tame hand-raised Bar-shouldered Dove which flew up and sat on my head and just stayed there happily. A volunteer had to entice it off my head before leaving the enclosure.

Also around this part of the zoo were various small enclosures including two rows of aviaries with various unusual birds and an aviary with Glossy Black-cockatoos. Other avian highlights from this part of the zoo included an enclosure with Black-necked Storks, as well as a keeper showing a Rufous Owl which wasn’t on permanent exhibit. This part of the zoo also contained the wildlife hospital with various displays about the hospital’s work, and also an area with many small echidna enclosures for their echidna research. There were large windows looking into the hospital where a Swamp Wallaby was being sedated and it was quite interesting to look inside. Near to this area was also where the animal shows took place. One was taking a picture with a Golden Brushtail Possum (which I didn’t do and just went past) and the other was the bird show which I did look at where the highlight was probably a Black-breasted Buzzard display breaking into an Emu egg. The final thing that I would like to mention from this part of the zoo is the frog breeding area which is just a large shed-like building but with little viewing windows in it to see various tanks with some individuals of the frog species that they are breeding. Viewing wasn’t great, though I did manage to see all three species that they were breeding there: White-lipped Tree-frog, Liem’s Tinker Frog, and Spotted Tree Frog.

After lunch and some more looks at the bird aviaries in that section of the zoo, I went back through the tunnel under the road and to the other section. As well as the photo with a Koala area that I saw when I first went to the zoo, and the rather nice small walkthrough aviary also mentioned above, there were some Kangaroos, Tamar Wallabies, and Tasmanian Devils, all species in exhibits with better viewing in the other part of the zoo, though the main thing here was an exhibit called ‘Blinky Bill’s Home Tree’ (apparently in the past called the ‘Green Cauldron’). This exhibit is themed around a cartoon character called ‘Blinky Bill’ who is an Australian cartoon koala and the zoo has a large model tree with a model of a little bedroom, etc. with a staircase up the middle of the tree and various walkways around the tree, hence the name ‘Blinky Bill’s Home Tree’.


At the bottom is an enclosed area with a variety of enclosures for large aquatic reptiles (turtles, Freshwater Crocodile, Merten’s Water Monitor, Eastern Water Dragon) as well as a few fish and within this area there is an indoor area with reptile enclosures which leads on to the nocturnal house.


Also dotted around the raised walkways are a few other herp enclosures and another little nocturnal room which contained an enclosure for Bilbies and Ghost Bats. These would be quite easy to miss so I’m pleased I explored thoroughly despite it seeming to just be themed with the cartoon koala. Most of the enclosures in this exhibit are ok, though some were a bit small particularly for the larger reptiles including the crocodile and a Perentie that they held there (would be better in an outdoor enclosure given their climate, in my opinion). A few of the animals here were quite unusual including the Water Rat (though a species I had already seen multiple times in Europe) and Yellow-bellied Glider which I was pleased to see after not seeing the species at David Fleay Wildlife Park.

After I had seen the last of the zoo I still had over an hour before the taxi was due, so I headed over to the ‘forest walk’ to see if I could find any wild birds. I was actually pleasantly surprised that I managed to add a few very nice species in addition to the common ones that I had already seen. These were both Scaly-breasted and Little Lorikeets, a Bar-shouldered Dove, and a Brown Cuckoo-dove sitting high in one of their many tall trees. There may have been more, though they were moving too quickly too high in the trees, and not being familiar with the bird calls of Eastern Australia I couldn’t use that to help. Though I was rather pleased with my four new birds.

Before exiting the zoo though, I passed the wild lorikeet feeding area which is kind of half way in and half way out of the zoo (it is past the exit but in an enclosed area before going through the gift shop to be out of the zoo proper) and is an area where what I think is just sugar water is left in trays for wild lorikeets and there were literally hundreds there (all Rainbow Lorikeets) and it was of course incredibly noisy and rather manic with lorikeets everywhere.

So overall I did very much like Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. It didn't quite have the charm of David Fleay but is certainly a good zoo with mostly good exhibits and a few unusual species.

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We got back to the accommodation just around sunset, though in the taxi ride on the way back I saw a flock of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos and just outside the hotel there was a Pied Butcherbird, along with the common Noisy Miners, Pied Currawong, and Crested Pigeons. After a quick shop in a 7-Eleven (one open 24 hours a day, oddly enough) we had an early, relaxed evening before bed.

New birds seen:
Scaly-breasted Lorikeet
Brown Cuckoo-dove
Little Lorikeet
Bar-shouldered Dove
Pied Butcherbird
Sulphur-crested Cockatoo
Eastern Australian Purple Swamphen

New reptile:
Snake-necked Turtle

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