blurpenguin

20 years ago this 8 acre dump site was converted to now a Kiwi Birdlife Park, still operated independently by locals...

We had initially wanted to ride a steam ship in the lake, but a timing oversight made us to visit this park first...

The park is filled with super tall trees and located at the base of the gondola ride... It's very hard to imagine it being an ex dump site...


Of course the main attraction was live Kiwi birds, but unfortunately no cameras are allowed in... but we did see them! My first impression was... wow... they were big... the ones we saw were very cute and fat... and ran pretty fast... i would say they were the size of large chickens on long legs with a long snout... in their enclosures with only a pilot light u could see them scavenging around for worms, running around quite a large enclosure... there were 2 huts having these kiwi birds...

also note, all the birds in this Birdlife park animals are endangered, thus also protected animals.

they also had some shows with some birds and rats! An 80 year old lizard was also a highlight...


We also saw the Kea parrot, its one of the few alpine parrots in the world and one of the most intelligent parrot species in the world, also the most endangered.


Of course, the kids had a fun time here... running around and animals are always attention grabbers. Phoebe also had a stone picking great time... the grandparents say, she will be a geologist...