点评:One would not ordinarily associate an Australian-themed animal park with a medieval walled city in France, but somehow here it works.
Le Parc Australien is less than a 10-minute drive from the old city of Carcassonne. They claim it's only 3 minutes, but we didn't time it. This site is a totally different kind of attraction, but a nice change of pace.
We were attracted by the prospect of feeding albino wallabies. They spoke enough English at the entrance that we were able to buy tickets for our group of 5. The park itself is nice. The website also has an English translation.
Unfortunately for us, and likely the animals, we were here on a very hot day (102 degrees Fahrenheit/39 degrees Celsius). We certainly cannot blame the owners for that; nor could we blame most of the animals for not being very much interested in eating.
They have some exhibits on Australian Aboriginal culture, but the stars of the show are the animals. Most of the interactions with the animals are with a guide, which makes sense. They have an aviary of sorts where you can feed Australian Parakeets who will eat from your hand.
There are a mix of brown and albino wallabies. You feed them sliced carrots. Due to the heat they were not interested in eating during our visit, but these are, after all, wild animals. It was still cool to see them.
I believe they had at least one emu, but the ostriches (which are not Australian) were more interesting. Fortunately, emus have healthy appetites. You feed them from what appear to be bowls with very long handles. You definitely want that because they are large animals with hard beaks. Feeding them in this way is both fun and painless.
They also have animals such as camels which are, of course, not native to Australia.
This was a fun break during our visit to Carcassone.
翻译:通常人们不会把以澳大利亚为主题的动物园与法国的中世纪城墙城市联系在一起,但在这里两者却相得益彰。
澳大利亚公园距离卡尔卡松的老城区不到10分钟车程。虽然他们宣称只需3分钟,但我们并未特意计时。这里是一个风格迥异的旅游景点,倒也算是一种不错的体验变化。
我们被可以喂养白化袋鼠的机会所吸引。他们在入口处说的英语足够流利,让我们顺利为五人小组买到了门票。公园本身也很不错。网站上也有英文翻译。
对我们来说很不幸,对那些动物来说可能也是如此——我们去的那天天气极其炎热(华氏102度/摄氏39度)。我们当然不能因此责怪园主;同样,我们也没法责怪那些动物对进食没什么兴趣。
园区内还有一些关于澳大利亚原住民文化的展览。不过,这场表演的主角其实是动物们。大多数与动物的互动都是在导游的陪同下进行的,这也合情合理。那里有一个类似鸟舍的场地,你可以亲手喂澳大利亚长尾雀,它们会乖乖地从你手中啄食。
那里有棕色和白化品种的沙袋鼠。你可以喂它们切好的胡萝卜。由于天气太热,我们去的时候它们没什么进食的兴致,不过它们毕竟是野生动物嘛。能见到它们也算挺有意思的。
我觉得那里至少有一只鸸鹋。不过那些鸵鸟(其实并非澳大利亚原产)更有趣一些。幸运的是,鸸鹋的食欲相当旺盛。喂食时需要使用一些带有很长把手的“碗”——当然,你肯定需要这种工具,因为它们体型庞大且长着坚硬的喙。用这种方式喂食既有趣又轻松无压力。
这里还有骆驼之类的动物,它们当然也不是澳大利亚的原生物种。
这次经历算是我们游览卡尔卡松时一段有趣的插曲吧。