Home   Spalding   News   Article

Subscribe Now

Donington, birthplace of Matthew Flinders, is home to some wallabies




Discovering Donington, the birthplace of Matthew Flinders, is a delight for many visiting Australians... but the lucky few find a surprising tie with the land Down Under.

For the last 20 years, wallabies have made the nearby countryside their home, thanks to Maggie Smith, who hires out an attractive barn for self-catering holidaymakers.

The barn, which sleeps five, is set in a beautiful waterfowl garden just off Quadring Road, and the wallabies have their own area where they roam and eat as they please.

Jumping is the only way for a wallaby to get around ...
Jumping is the only way for a wallaby to get around ...

Maggie (73) has four wallabies - including one she’s had for 20 years from her original group - and explains that semi-domesticated wallabies live far longer than those in their native, wild habitat.

Donington traders and residents hope for tourism boost with Matthew Flinders' homecoming

Donington hero Matthew Flinders is coming home

Wallabies belong to the kangaroo family and share common traits, including oversized feet used for jumping, their only way of getting around.

Wallabies are much smaller and altogether friendlier than their cousins, which is what drew Maggie to them.

“They are like kangaroos but they are much nicer,” said Maggie. “They wouldn’t kick you or anything like that. They are very clean.”

Wallabies love to eat grass and leaves.

Maggie said: “There’s oak, there’s ash, there’s every different sort of tree you can think of down there.”

She hand feeds the wallabies the occasional treat of a round of brown bread, but says: “They will live without me feeding them.”

Australian visitors who have stayed at the barn in the past have been delighted to find links with home.

“I have had Australian people here,” said Maggie. “They always say they can get better photographs of the wallabies here than they do in Australia because they can get closer to them.”

Maggie is sometimes mistaken for an Australian herself - which she attributes to her broad accent - although she’s a proper Lincolnshire yellowbelly, orginally from Kirton Holme.

She keeps white wallabies, although they can be found in a reddish brown, grey, brown and black.

Females of both species have pouches in which they carry their young, who suckle for around nine months.

Originally Maggie had intended to buy fallow deer but saw wallabies in a field and fell in love with them.

Maggie gets a lot of repeat business through people returning to the barn or recommending it to friends, and is already booked-up for three weeks in July - the month when Matthew Flinders, the man who mapped the coast of Australia, will be reburied inside the parish church.

But she’s hoping to welcome more Australian visitors in the future, and will be delighted to introduce them to her wallabies.



Comments | 0
This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies - Learn More