It's a slightly surreal experience to take a right turn on a suburban street and suddenly find yourself on a working farm. The former Fairfield City Farm, around which the suburb of Abbotsbury has sprung up, offers families hands-on access to cute farm animals as well as everyone's favourite marsupials. The animal nursery lets you enter an enclosure to interact with young sheep and goats; a bag of feed costs $2. There's also a large kangaroo pen where you can mingle freely with the inhabitants.
Daily shows demonstrate the uncanny ability of working dogs to bend sheep to their will, as well as the arts of shearing sheep, using a stockwhip and milking cows. Koala patting happens every day at 2pm. There are native birds and poultry, snakes and lizards, and opportunities to ride on a tractor too.