Wombats, Caves & Mountains: A Unique 1-Night Camping Escape from Sydney.

Updated: 20 June 2025

Reading Time: 4 minutes

🏔️ Key Details:

🚗 Route:

On the way there: (3 hrs 27 mins)
Sydney CBD → Bowral (stop) → Taralga Wildlife Park (stop) → Wombeyan Caves

On the way home: (4 hrs)
Wombeyan Caves → Three Sisters (stop) → Sydney CBD

Located just over a 1.5 hrs from Sydney, Bowral is the perfect place to stop to get lunch and enjoy the serene small town vibes.

If you are a keen bean and want to keep driving before the first stop, Goulburn provides the same small town feel but is located a little over 2 hrs from Sydney.

Every once and a while this park makes its way into the news cycle, sparking debate among Australians who are divided on its ethical implications. The main attraction (and the most controversial) are the wombats. The ethical debate revolves around whether it’s acceptable to hold one. Personally, I was torn before heading to Taralga, and I was still a bit conflicted when I got there. (see why below!)

📍 Location: Taralga Wildlife Park is a family-owned sanctuary in the scenic Southern Tablelands of NSW, about a 2.5-hour drive from Sydney.

🦁 Wildlife & Attractions:

• Home to many native Australian animals like kangaroos, quokkas, emus, dingoes and wombats.
• Hands-on feeding experiences with farm animals (goats, donkeys, many birds)
• Beautiful open enclosures offering a close-up wildlife experience.
• One of the only places in NSW that offers a “wombat experience” where you get to hold a wombat.

🕰️ Opening Hours:

• Hours vary however, when I visited: Everyday, 10 AM – 4 PM (Check their facebook page here for the most up to date hours).

🎟️ Entry Fees:

• Adults: $25
• Students: $20
• Kids: $15
• Family pass (2 Adults 2 Kids): $55

🍽️ Food & Facilities:

• On-site café with coffee and light meals (pies, pastries) ☕🍔
• Picnic areas available if you prefer to bring your own food 🧺
• Free parking and clean restroom facilities 🚻

🔎 Tips for Your Visit:
✅ Arrive early for the Wombat experience. I was advised to get there before 1pm latest!
✅ Bring a hat, sunscreen, and water—it can get hot! ☀️
✅ Cash & card accepted 💵💳

🚗 Getting There:

• Best accessed by car (limited public transport options).
• Located off the main road, with easy signage to follow.

I think its safe to say that this place was more than I anticipated it to be. Overall, its a pretty big open area, with a lot of animals that I was not expecting. It’s relatively remote with not many shops nearby however, I was surprised by how busy this park got, especially with international tourists. It looked like a lot of people were doing day trips just to snag a photo with a wombat.

Now for the million-dollar question: what’s the “wombat experience” really like? Simply put, it delivers exactly what it promises. You get to pat and hold a wombat. On the day, there were two main wombats doing rounds in the park.

One was Wilma, a fully grown diva that was happy to munch on grass all day and take photos with people. What surprised me was that Wilma had complete control over her exposure to the visitors at the park, and after she had enough of the people she sprinted off like a raging bullet, back to her enclosure and instantly fell asleep.

It was really cute and made me feel like the park was not trying to exploit their animals. Karl was the second wombat and just a baby. When asking the wombat keeper how they get the wombats she told me that all wombats are rescues and wouldn’t survive in the wild alone. Apparently, Karl’s mother was killed in a tragic car accident and they found him near-death on the side of the road 😢.

So… is it okay to visit this park and should they still run this “wombat experience”? To best answer this question I will try to put forth both pros and cons of this experience.

✅ Pros of a Wombat Holding Experience:

1. Education & Awareness – Hands-on experiences with an educated handler can foster appreciation and awareness about wombats, leading to greater conservation efforts. (many wombats are killed each year due to farmland hunting)
2. Funding for Conservation – Many wildlife parks rely on ticket sales to support rescue, rehabilitation, and research programs.
3. Supervised & Controlled Environment – If done correctly, with strict handling limits and professional supervision, it may not cause significant stress to the animals. These animals grew up in captivity (still sad but thats any zoo/sanctuary) so they are more conditioned to humans and could potentially have a lower stress response. Taralga also had a limited amount of wombat experiences per day, and seemed to respect the wombats when they showed signs of tiredness.
4. Unique Experience – Visitors, especially children, get a rare chance to connect with wildlife in a personal way, potentially inspiring future conservationists. This is kind of far fetched, but still true. Maybe it can inspire a future David Attenborough lol.

❌ Cons of a Wombat Holding Experience:

1. Animal Stress – Frequent human contact can be stressful for wombats, who are naturally solitary and not accustomed to handling. As of writing this post, the Australian Government does not have any laws forbidding the handling of wombats in sanctuaries. However, more research needs to be undertaken in the future to get a better gauge of how constant handling can affect wombat well being. Through my very limited literature review I have found some articles such as this one, that attempt to measure cortisol production in response to repeated handling.
2. Encourages Unnatural Interactions – Normalising holding wildlife may lead to misunderstandings about how they should be treated in the wild. I do not want to make any generalisations however, I can imagine an international tourist coming to Australia, doing this experience and then assuming that they can hold any wild wombat that they encounter. However, Taralga was very strict and clear with visitors on how different wild wombats are to wombats that grew up in captivity.
3. Ethical Dilemmas – Some argue that wild animals should not be used for entertainment, even if there are educational benefits. This argument is close to my heart, as during my international travels I have seen many, clearly wrong cases of animal abuse used for entertainment and generating revenue. Think Sea World but way worse 😔
4. Potential for Mishandling – Even in controlled environments, inexperienced visitors may inadvertently harm or distress the wombat. (someone dropping or panicking when holding the wombat)

In conclusion, I still enjoyed my time visiting Taralga Wildlife Park. However, I can definitely understand why a lot of people choose not to support businesses like this. If you have any other thoughts that I did not mention on the list, feel free to leave a comment below and we can have a friendly discussion!

Next Stop Cave Swimming!

Where do I even start… This is truly one of the most underrated spots I have ever been to. If you have already driven to Taralga, you might as well make the most of it and drive 30 more minutes to Wombeyan Caves!!!

📍 Location: Wombeyan Cave Tourist Centre

🕰️ Opening Hours: 9AM – 4PM

The location link above will take you to the Wombeyan Cave Tourist Centre which is right next to the hike into the cave swimming. Fun fact this is a natural limestone cave system and in Australia this is pretty rare! So you really feel like you are transported to another country.

Its also important to note that the gates will close at 4PM outside the tourists centre. Meaning make sure you park your car outside of the gate, if you plan to stay past 4.

The track you want to look for is Mares Forest Creek Track Walking Track and it should lead directly to the Tinted Caves (swimming area).

The hike in is beautiful and my biggest regret was not having enough time to explore all of the other cave systems. There are so many in the area! The water is very clean but be warned…its very cold 🥶.

There are two main campsites I will include.

Firstly, you can camp onsite at Wombeyan Caves. However, bookings are essential and when we got there, they were actually booked out! So make sure you book early. Bookings can be made here.

The Second campground is the one I actually ended up staying at. Its located a little bit West to Wombeyan Caves and is called Bummaroo Ford Campground. This campground was more basic compared to the Wombeyan Caves yet still required booking. However, its only $6 and bookings can be made here. I need to be honest, this wasn’t the best camping experience I had as although it is a beautiful campsite. It was during peak summer and I had hundreds of flying termites fly into my head torch and stove when I was trying to cook my home made tortillas 😫.

One of my favourite parts of this itinerary is that you don’t backtrack! After spending time in the caves, take the scenic drive up to the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountains has a very special place in my heart and I think there is just way too much to cover for just one blog so I’ll have to end this here. Let me know in the comments if you have any questions and thank you for reading!