Gan-Garoo Australian Park


Kids will love this delightful little corner of Australia, where – amid Aussie vegetation – they can pet and feed friendly, free-range kangaroos. Another hit: in the aviary (open for 20 or 30 minutes every hour or two) visitors can feed apple slivers to colourful lorikeets and cockatiels. Ever resourceful, the birds have developed a habit of hopping onto people's shirts and licking their neck sweat for its salt content.

Opened in 1996, this fully accredited zoo, run by Kibbutz Nir David, is also home to cassowaries, emus and flying foxes. Situated 6.5km west of Beit She'an, next to the entrance to Sachne (Gan HaShlosha) National Park.


Lonely Planet's must-see attractions

Nearby attractions

1. Japanese Garden

1.37 MILES

Up the hill from the ancient Beit Alfa Synagogue, deep inside Kibbutz Heftzibah, is something unexpected: a lovely little Shinto-style Japanese garden…

2. Beit Alpha Synagogue

1.42 MILES

No one was more surprised than the members of Kibbutz Heftzibah when they went out to dig an irrigation channel in 1928 and uncovered a stunning,…

3. Beit She’an National Park

3.12 MILES

Beit She’an’s extraordinary Roman ruins are the best place in Israel to get a sense of what it was like to live, work and shop in the Roman Empire…

4. Museum of Art, Ein Harod

4.86 MILES

Almost as remarkable for its modernist building (inaugurated in 1948, with additions from the 1950s) as its outstanding art collection (mainly by Israeli…

5. Nachmani Winery

6.69 MILES

UK-born Frances and her Moroccan-born husband David have turned a wine-making hobby into a micro-winery that produces just 2100 bottles a year. You can…

6. Belvoir Crusader Fortress

7.85 MILES

Set on a hilltop 550m above the Jordan River, this Crusader fortress, measuring an impressive 110m by 110m, consists of concentric ramparts, gates,…

7. Masjid Jenin Al Kabir

9.6 MILES

With its unmissable green roof, Masjid Jenin Al Kabir (Jenin Great Mosque), was built in 1566 on the orders of Fatima Khatun, then wife of the Governor of…

8. Freedom Theatre

9.83 MILES

Set in Jenin's refugee camp, the Freedom Theatre has persevered in the face of unimaginable odds, including the assassination of its founder, Juliano Mar…

  • placement: superzone
  • path: Destinations/POIs/superzone
  • possible size: [970, 250], [970, 90], [728, 90], [1, 1],
  • targeting:
    {
      "url": "israel/jezreel-beit-she-an-valleys-1342178/attractions/gan-garoo-australian-park/a/poi-sig/1501873/1342178",
      "position": "superzone"
    }