When Yatala Had Lions!
Imagine taking the family for a Sunday drive and ending up inside an enclosure with lions!
It sounds unbelievable today, but for almost 20 years, thousands of Queenslanders visited Bullens African Lion Safari at Yatala, where the family car was the thing separating you from some very large and very curious animals!
The park was part of the remarkable Bullen family story.
Alfred and Lilian Bullen became famous through Bullen's Circus, which toured Australia with performers and exotic animals. Their son Stafford Bullen later became one of the driving forces behind the family's safari parks.
The first African Lion Safari opened at Warragamba in New South Wales in 1968, and the Bullen family soon brought the idea to Queensland.
The Yatala park opened in 1969, becoming one of the region's most unusual tourist attractions.
And this wasn't your ordinary zoo!
Instead of standing behind a fence looking at the animals, visitors drove slowly through large enclosures in their own cars.
Lions, elephants, bears, hyenas and other exotic animals could be seen wandering around the park. There were also Australian animals and some rather unusual creatures, including a liger - a lion/tiger hybrid.
The instructions for the lion enclosure were pretty simple:
Stay in your car. Keep the windows closed.
And visitors certainly got close enough to understand why!
Former visitors remember lions approaching cars and looking straight through the windscreen. One visitor recalled a lion jumping up onto the bonnet of the family car.
Another remembered the huge paddock and long grass making the experience feel like being on the African plains - except you were actually in Yatala!
Then came one family's unforgettable visit in 1978.
Ralph Coles was driving through the park with his wife and their two young children in their 1966 Ford Falcon when they suffered a flat tyre inside the lion enclosure.
There was a sign telling visitors to sound their horn if they needed assistance.
So Ralph did exactly that.
But then the car battery went flat.
As the family waited, lions began circling the vehicle. Thankfully, park staff eventually arrived, scared the lions away and towed the car to safety.
It was, unsurprisingly, the family's first and last visit!
The park wasn't without serious incidents either.
The State Library records reports of staff being bitten and injured by animals, and one tragic incident in which a handler was attacked and killed by lions. Animals also escaped from the park on occasions.
Looking back today, driving a family car through an enclosure containing lions seems absolutely extraordinary.
But at the time, it was a hugely popular attraction.
After nearly two decades, Bullens African Lion Safari closed in 1988, and the land was subsequently sold and developed into an industrial area.
And here's the really fun part…
You can still find reminders of the old safari park today.
The former site is now an industrial estate, but Lions Park Drive and the Lions Park Industrial Estate preserve a little clue to what once stood here.
So next time you're travelling through Yatala, imagine the scene…
Family cars creeping slowly along…
Lions wandering past…
Children staring through the windscreen…
And parents hoping nobody says:
“Dad… I think we've got a flat tyre!”
Did you visit Bullens Lion Park?
We'd love to hear your memories. What do you remember seeing - lions, elephants, the rides, the gift shop, or something completely different?
With thanks to Mick Winterburn for the idea and inspiration for this article. We really appreciate you helping us uncover another fascinating piece of local history.
To ℎelp bring tℎis story to life, we’ve colourised black and wℎite public domain pℎotograpℎs. Wℎile we ℎave carefully aimed for ℎistorical accuracy, some images may contain minor imperfections or artistic interpretation.
