About an hour's drive North of Sydney in the town of Somersby located Australian reptile Park – the habitat of various reptiles, including snakes, lizards and crocodiles, as well as other typical Australian animals – kangaroos, Tasmanian devils, cassowaries, etc. One of the important directions of work of the Park is a collection of poison snakes and spiders, which are then used in the production of antidotes – this has been saved for over 15 thousands of lives.

The reptile Park was founded in 1948 in the aquarium town of Umina beach and in 1959 was transferred to North Gosford, where he located on a former orange grove. Almost forty years later – in 1996 – the Park once again moved, this time to Somersby. In 2000 there was a huge fire, which was almost completely burned down the main building of the Park along with hundreds of its inhabitants. However, after only seven weeks the Park is open again, thanks to the help of citizens and zoos from all over Australia.

Among the principal inhabitants of the Park – American alligators, crocodiles, turtles, Komodo monitor lizards, geckos, iguanas and a variety of snakes. Spiders are represented by such species as tarantula, Voroncova water-spider, spider-Mason, tarantula (the largest in the world) etc. Here you can see the huge skeleton of a Diplodocus dinosaur, whom local media have nicknamed Ploddy.

For a long time "star" inhabitant of the Park was the crocodile, Eric, who was born in 1947 in Northern Australia. In the 1980s he was considered guilty in the disappearance of two children, caught and placed in a Crocodile Farm in Darwin. But there he bit off the head of females, to whom I had to live, and made a "duel" with another crocodile, in which he lost his hind leg. In 1989 a special on Eric moved to the Australian reptile Park, where he became a real star – the army of his fans consisted of more than 10 thousand people around the world! Eric died in 2007 from a systemic infection. At the time of his death he weighed 700 pounds and was 5, 6 meters in length – it was the largest crocodile in the state of New South Wales. Today in the Park in memory of Eric the memorial, and in his cage settled new crocodile named Elvis.