New South Wales · City

Dubbo

Thubbo

Home of Taronga Western Plains Zoo

On the lands of the Wiradjuri people.

sunny Best in March to October

schedule 2 days

location_on Central West, NSW

directions_car 400 km north-west of Sydney

flight Dubbo City Regional Airport (DBO)

directions Directions

Best for Families Wildlife Road trips

schedule 1 min read / Updated Apr 2026

A regional hub on the Macquarie River in central New South Wales, best known as the home of Taronga Western Plains Zoo. The open-range zoo covers 300 hectares and is one of the only places in the world where you can drive a car or cycle through a pride of white rhinos.

Dubbo sits at the junction of several major highways on Wiradjuri country, and has always been a trading centre for the wheat and sheep country around it. The name 'Thubbo' is a Wiradjuri word for a type of cap.

The Taronga Western Plains Zoo opened in 1977 as the country division of Sydney's Taronga Zoo, designed to give large African and Asian animals room to roam. The zoo now has over 4,000 animals on 300 hectares. Visitors get around on a 6 kilometre one-way loop that can be driven, cycled or walked, and the zoo runs overnight safari-tent stays inside the grounds.

The Old Dubbo Gaol in the town centre is a preserved 1870s prison where you can stand in the original condemned cell and see the working gallows. The Dundullimal Homestead, a surviving 1840s slab-timber homestead five minutes out of town, is one of the oldest of its kind in Australia.