Run by the same family since it opened in 1965, Gorge Wildlife Park is a privately owned sanctuary at Cudlee Creek in the Adelaide Hills, about thirty kilometres northeast of the South Australian capital. Spread across roughly fourteen acres of shaded, tree-covered ground, it grew from a small family venture into what it describes as one of the largest privately owned collections of Australian animals, with shaded paths winding between enclosures rather than the grand exhibits of a big-city zoo. The park focuses on close contact with wildlife. Visitors can wander among free-roaming birds, hand-feed kangaroos and wallabies and, on scheduled occasions, hold a koala, an experience that has long been one of its main draws. Alongside native mammals, reptiles and a large aviary collection, it keeps a range of exotic birds and animals, and it takes part in conservation efforts for threatened species such as the brush-tailed rock-wallaby. The relaxed, old-style layout and family ownership give it a personal, low-key atmosphere that many visitors contrast with larger commercial attractions. Set among the hills, orchards and forests of the Cudlee Creek area, the park is an easy half-day trip from Adelaide and is often combined with a wider drive through the region's wineries, orchards and forest reserves. Picnic areas and a kiosk make it suited to families with young children, and the shaded grounds are pleasant in the warmer months. As a long-running, family-operated sanctuary that has introduced generations of South Australians to native wildlife up close, it holds a particular place among the state's animal attractions, valued for its informality and its hands-on encounters. Admission is modest by the standards of larger attractions, and the park keeps a low-key, self-guided format in which visitors set their own pace among the aviaries and enclosures. Daily koala holding, where conditions allow, remains the signature draw, but the chance to hand-feed kangaroos and walk among free-ranging birds is what many families remember. The setting in the Adelaide Hills, close to the gorge itself and the Torrens River, makes it easy to combine with a scenic drive, a stop at a cellar door or a picnic in the surrounding bushland. The park has weathered the pressures that face small, privately run zoos, including the 2019 bushfires that swept parts of Cudlee Creek, and its continued family operation gives it a sense of continuity that visitors returning after many years often comment on.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: 30 Redden Drive, Adelaide, Australia

Telephone: (08) 8389 2206

Website: https://gorgewildlifepark.com.au

Opening Date: 01/01/1965