Television presenter David Reyne got up close and personal with some of Taronga Western Plain Zoo's tiniest residents on Tuesday.
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Getaway kicked off its first day of filming across the region in Dubbo at the zoo where they filmed a segment on the Zoofari Lodge, and it wasn't long before David ended up in the Meerkat enclosure.
David said the Meerkats were an inquisitive bunch and were very eager to climb all over him.
"You think, 'Oh, I'm clearly exuding some kind of animal magnetism', and then you realise, no, I'm just a high vantage point," he said.
"All they're interested in is using you to get food. They scramble, they have little claws... and they have a particular smell, but that's ok, all animals do."
The crew spent the majority of the day exploring the zoo before they met up with a resident to film a Buy from the Bush story.
The crew will be covering a number of Buy from the Bush stories across the region in a bid to draw attention to the people in the area who have been forced to find other ways to survive when their primary industry has suffered in recent times, due to the drought.
"The thing about the drought is, it's been lingering and lingering for so long that I do think we are all very aware of it in the cities," he admitted.
Even with the hardships of the recent bushfires headlining most media outlets for some time as of late, David believes the drought is still something people are aware of.
"I think people are thinking about both now. In a sense, it seems a strange thing to say, but it's kind of good, it gets the city people to remember about the bush," he said.
Despite the fact that David has visited some of the worlds most "magnificent" places with Getaway, such as the Ice Hotel located 200km inside the Arctic Circle in the Swedish Lapland's, there's still just something about country Australia that he loves.
"I've always loved coming out to Dubbo," he said.
"It's a beautiful landscape, even in the dry its beautiful, it's a unique Australian landscape, but also, it's that thing about country people, country hospitality and the country way of life which is unique to Australia as well I think, it's always easy and always appealing to come out to areas like this I find.
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"The call of the country isn't in the cities, it's out here.
"It was particularly good coming out here and seeing how green everything is.
"It's been pretty brown, pretty dry and pretty dusty for quite some time."
Getaway will head to Orange next where they will be filming at the Bush Art Trails and the Orange Food Bowl.
No official date has been confirmed as to when the episodes will air, but it is said to most likely be around April.