BiolSoc Dubbo Trip 1999

In the Path of a Pregnant Rhino (by Katrina Hand)

This is an article about the Dubbo zoo trip! I say that because the title is a little ambiguous (and strange). To those who went: didn’t we have fun, and to those who didn’t: don’t you wish you did? Well maybe.

We set out on Friday arvo, having overloaded the three tiny tiny cars with food, drink and luggage – lots of luggage. Our first stop was the Hydro Majestic, where we proved we were tourists by whipping out the camera (OK, OK, I did) and finally after 8 hours of driving (Thanks James, Orla, Lynley and Albert – the rest of us bums just sat around and watched!) we made it to the Dubbo RSL, where we appeared to be the freaks – the youngest and strangest patrons of the club that night. Anyway, we ended up at the cabins, which looked to me, a first-time traveler – like dodgy demountables (they were really good on the inside though, they even had TV’s!!!) and after "bagsing" the en suite and single bed, I at least went to sleep.

The next day, we actually went to the zoo. We rented these really really dodgy bikes, one speed and probably made in the ‘70s, and set off. Obviously there were heaps of cool animals, like the rhino’s (the pregnant one who inspired Orla to come up with the title of this article), the giraffes, the hippo’s (a really cute baby one who nearly got me killed as I leaned too far over the fence to get a pic) and the weirdo animals where you go "look a deer!" then find out it is actually something really different. Plus some bloody apes or something (they were Gibbons, Kat – ed.) who made this really annoying sound that you could hear around the whole damn zoo (slight exaggeration Kat, it’s a VERY big zoo! – ed.), I suppose they were cute though – if we could only shut them up!

I was a little disappointed by the koala enclosure, there was only one koala in it, that we could see, and the same was true for the yellow-footed rock wallabies, perhaps we are just blind though, or made too much noise singing "Lean on Me". One really cool thing was watching these wild dog animals (sorry, I forgot the name) get fed! The keeper gave a little speech while he threw rabbit carcasses in to the dogs who disemboweled them before tearing them apart and eating them. (They kill their prey by disemboweling them, so it was only natural that they’d do it to already dead rabbits!!??!!)

James and Albert raced to the finish of the trail, although no winner was proclaimed (but I clearly won – ed.). Then we went to buy food and booze for the BBQ that night, where we were invaded by the locals and so retreated to one of our cabins to play ummm ‘interesting’ drinking games. We slept in very late the next day, and realised that we probably could have left the caravan park without paying (we didn’t of course) and headed home, stopping at a few lookout spots on the way home, oh and of course the boys (and Theresa) had to go around Mt Panorama when we went through Bathurst.

All in all, we had a great time. Except perhaps those who had to drive the whole damn sixteen hours (at least) of the trip, i.e. James and Orla (thank you, thank you, thank you from the rest of us) and Lynley, the idiot, who left Dubbo at like 4am to get to a baseball game in Sydney.

Now, don’t you wish you went???

Editor’s final note: As one of the drivers, can I just say that I DID thoroughly enjoy the weekend, and that it was only about 14 hours of driving! Thanks to everybody who went along for making it such a wonderful weekend!!