Melbourne Zoo

You can’t visit Melbourne without spending a day at Australia's oldest zoo. Located deep within leafy Royal Park, the Zoo sprawls over a 22-hectare area, offering twilight visits with live music over summer. Families with children will be especially delighted with the chance to get up and close and personal with 350 animal species. And not just the Aussie natives - like the impossibly cute koala bear, and the bounding kangaroo - you can also step foot into the African and Asian rainforest displays with plant and animal species native to the region.

Behind the "immersion landscape" design you'll find the imposing gorillas (like Yakini, whose name means truth in Swahili), the giant pygmy hippopotamus who likes to peer from the water with his flaring nostrils and the majestic Sumatran tiger, now endangered with only 400 left in the wild.

Another highlight is the steamy Butterfly House, where you can stand amid the flutter of more than 800 butterflies in the tropical glasshouse. It's a unique experience to watch these fascinating insects feed on nectar and float above your head. Also, don't miss the cheeky and hyperactive meerkats, always keen to put on a dramatic show for visitors, with at least one of the bunch to keep watch.

For an incredible overnight adventure, a Roar 'n' Snore experience lets guests wine, dine and sleep where the elephants once walked, in the Historic Elephant Exhibit. Built in the 1940s, the enclosure has been turned into a unique campsite where visitors can hear, smell and see zoo creatures after dark - when many of them come to life. An overnight zoo adventure includes dinner, safari tent accommodation and early morning wake up calls from Gibbons and cockatoos.

Contact details:

• Website: http://www.zoo.org.au/MelbourneZoo
• Address: Elliott Avenue, Parkville Victoria 3052
• Tel: (03) 9285 9300

Getting there

• Train Upfield or Gowrie lines From Flinders street station will take you to Royal Park Station, an entrance to the zoo.
• Trams Tram 55 runs through Williams Street of Melbourne’s CBD.
• Driving There is parking available at the Zoo