Food Feature: Roos rule in Dawsonville

Georgia’s own Outback experience is just a hop away

The 87-acre wildlife facility is the only wildlife park outside of Australia where visitors have the rare opportunity to meet kangaroos so upclose and personal.

Large open-air trucks carry private “safari” tours through the property. After arriving for the safari and checking in, there’s a limited amount of time in which to explore: One option is to walk to a small field nearby for some aboriginal culture and learn to throw a boomerang. Then it’s time to board the truck and off you go to explore the surroundings.

Ever-so-slowly you move through the fields filled with bright-eyed kangaroos. Their faces are alert and their demeanor is calm, but don’t let that fool you. Roos are large — adult male reds are often 5 1/2 feet tall and can weigh up to 180 pounds — and can cause much harm. That’s why owners Debbie and Roger Nelson or members of their staff are always with the group. Visitors are not allowed outside of the truck during this part of the tour. Some mothers with joeys in their pouches bask in the sun, while others hop around, just as they would in their native Australia. They look as playful as golden retriever puppies chasing dandelions on a spring day.

But it’s not all kangaroos. Aside from the red, western gray and eastern gray kangaroos, you’ll see an amazing exotic assortment of blue- winged kookaburra birds, East African crowned cranes, dik-diks (dwarf antelopes), ducks, burros, dama wallabies and springhasses (foot-tall nocturnal rodents that look like kangaroos) throughout the property.

The Nelsons acquired the property about four years ago to raise kangaroos and other exotic animals for zoological purposes. They had been raising animals at a smaller place in Alpharetta since the early ’80s but needed more space.

A life with kangaroos is not the most likely path for an engineer and an arts major. Roger Nelson majored in mechanical engineering at the University of Central Florida and his wife Debbie earned her degree in art history from Emory University. But the two careers “mixed well,” says Roger Nelson. “We each have been able to incorporate our careers into what we have devoted our lives to doing today.

“We have always had an interest in ecology and wildlife and when we started we only had a few animals, like llamas and antelope. We got our first kangaroo about 15 years ago and today I would say that 95 percent of the kangaroos we have were born here.”

The Nelsons also occasionally obtain roos from zoos around the world. Roger Nelson says, “There are still some new arrivals, which are given names, as all of them are and cared for like the rest of the mob.” Indeed, all the roos are cared for as lovingly as pets.

When the safari part of the tour is over, the truck brings visitors back to the starting point where everyone unloads. For the second half of the tour, you walk down the hill to a large red barn that also serves as a learning arena and animal care barn.

Inside, everyone sits on wooden benches that form a large “U” shape. There, many of the animals, including kangaroos and the delightful African dik-dik, the world’s smallest antelope (they only stand a foot high) are introduced. You learn what it takes to care for these animals and have the chance to touch — and in some cases hold — them. You can feel the softness of their coats and the strength of their muscles.

The tour concludes outside the barn with a walk-through of one of the kangaroo fields. Roger Nelson leads the way over to some of the kangaroos. He kneels down and puts his arms around the neck of one of his kangaroos. The rest of us walk over and kneel down to pet the wide-eyed creature. Roger Nelson is there, so the roos know there is no danger. We say our g’days as we give the roos one last scratch between the ears.

Nelson says, “It’s moments like this that cannot be captured at a zoo. People leave with an everlasting impression from the two-hour tour. If there is one thing that we hope everyone takes away from this experience is a newfound knowledge of kangaroos and more compassion for the wildlife that we share this world with.”??






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