Sixteen kilometres from Broome, Western Australia, on the Great Northern Highway, Malcolm Douglas is developing a wildlife park and animal refuge. Situated on thirty hectares it is very different from other Malcolm is hoping to give visitors a unique wilderness experience only a short drive from Broome. People will enter another world through the jaws of a giant crocodile. Constructed over several months through 2005, the entrance to the wildlife park is already recognised as the best example of its kind in the world. Beyond the crocodile entrance is the shop and an extraordinary display of Malcolm’s forty years spent producing his famous adventure films. These classics are a historical record of a way of life that is gone forever. Beyond the shop is the wildlife park featuring two huge billabongs where 200 crocodiles stage a twice weekly feeding frenzy, an awesome spectacle. The wildlife park is home to cassowaries, dingoes (including the rare white and a black), hundreds of kangaroos, euros and wallabies, emus and jabirus. Scattered throughout the park, large aviaries house many species of Kimberley birds. In the wild, visitors catch only glimpses of the local birds, but at the wildlife park the birds, some breathtakingly colourful can be enjoyed up close. A breeding program for many rare and little known kangaroos and wallabies is well established and new species are being added to the collection continuously. Winding paths through the park are well shaded by magnificent trees and giant golden bamboo. The track past the pandanus lined Barramundi pond leads to a large arid zone billabong where huge flocks of birds come and go throughout the year, depending on the seasonal conditions in the Great Sandy Desert to the east. At times thousands of whistling ducks, Pacific black duck and large numbers of pelicans stay for weeks. The daily tour finishes at the bird billabong at sundown a perfect time for photos and videos in the glorious golden light. Malcolm is currently developing a night walk, with infra-red lighting, through a wilderness inhabited by nocturnal animals. Many of these are among Australia’s least known species. Visitors will see bilbies, Sugar and Squirrel gliders, bandicoots, woylies, potaroos, quolls and possums, as well as some of the smaller, more elusive, wallabies. The Malcolm Douglas Wildlife Park is very different, a complete wilderness experience only 15 minutes from Broome. |