Keeper for a Day this School Holidays

At Maru this school holidays, you can take the opportunity to experience being an honorary ‘Keeper for a Day’ and work closely with one of our experienced Park Keepers and the animals/

Full and half day options are available, along with a special discount for a two person booking. Some of the days activities include;

• Assisting Park Keepers with the feeding and cleaning of the various animals and their enclosures.
• Special ‘behind the scenes’ access with the Park Keepers into the animal enclosures, feed preparation and hospital areas.
• Witnessing the treatment and feeding of any native rescued animals that have come into the Wildlife Shelter at Maru for care before hopeful release back into the wild, these animals are not on public display but kept in our hospital areas and usually not seen by the public.
• Assisting with the preparation and presentation of environmental enrichment activities for one of the animals.
• Assisting the Keepers who are giving hourly animal talks to the rest of our guests.
• Assisting with the afternoon feed up of the animals.

No experience at all is necessary but you do need to be physically able to work actively outdoors in all weather conditions and follow the directions of our Keepers. Visit our Booking Page here for more information and to make a Booking.

Maru to re-open from Saturday 11th September.

Maru Koala and Animal Park will be able to re-open as of this Saturday 11th Seeptember. Thank-You to everyone who has supported our take-away meals from our Homestead Bistro or purchased memberships or sponsored koala trees. We are thinking of our Melbourne metro friends and everyone else worldwide still in lockdown and hope it can end for you soon too.

Our current opening hours are 10:30am-4pm on weekdays with Last Entry at 3pm and 9:30am-5pm on Weekends and Holidays, with Last Entry at 4pm.
Online Booking for Entry is available here, and tickets for our Animal Experiences are available here. We recommended booking your tickets to avoid missing out as limitations will apply.

You can also help by sponsoring the planting of a tree in our new Eucalyptus plantation. When you donate $55 we will plant a new tree for you of one of the Eucalypt species that koalas like to eat. So not only will it provide ongoing food for the koalas in our care, but also financially support us at this challenging time to keep caring for all of the animals here at Maru. The plantation will also provide a natural haven for wildlife in our area. Visit our Sponsor a Koala Tree page for more information.

Maru Koala and Animal Park has also come up with a unique way that people can donate to support the care of the animals, but also a local family or person in need. Simply purchase a ‘Pay It Forward Membership’ and Maru will use those funds to help pay for the feed and care of the animals but we will then ‘pay forward’ the membership to a local family or person in need that is financially challenged and would not otherwise be able to afford to visit. For additional information, please visit our Pay It Forward page here.

We will continue to update our Facebook and Instagram pages daily with pictures of our animals. We hope this can bring some joy during this difficult period, and we hope that everyone is able to Stay Safe. We look forward to welcoming everybody back in the near future.

We also have an Annual Memberships available. This allows for unlimited entry of our Animal Park and Mini-Golf for one year from the purchase date. Click here to see our Membership Booking Page.