Today we went on a family outing to Orana wildlife park, or as we told Andrew the Zoo. We had lots of fun. Andrew was worn out by the end as he walked most of the time.
Here we are in a walk through aviary. Mummy got to get up close to one of her favourite birds a NZ wood pigeon. We also walked through another aviary with kea's. Andrew calls these Cheeky Kea from previous encounters.
We spent the first part of the time going to keeper talks and watching the animals being fed. This included tigers and ruffled lemurs as shown here.
The highlight of the day was getting to hand feed the giraffes. You are given a branch and you pretend to be a tree and let the giraffe strip the leaves off the branch with its tongue. Andrew was a little unsure about this but did manage to give the giraffe his branch. Mummy had to hold her branch in one hand and keep Rachel away in the other arm. Mummy did manage to pat the giraffe on its neck. They are a truly majestic animal to get up close too. But they also have a certain gentleness.
Andrew's new word for the day was rhinoceros (these ones are southern white rhinoceros). Although later in the day this was shorten to rhino.
We walked around most of the park but also took advantage of Safari shuttle to make a circuit of most of the park. In addition to those previously mentioned the other animals we saw included lions (they are quite large), tuatara (plus other reptiles), meerkats, zebra and springboks.
Tonight Rachel and I thanked God for making such an amazing variety of animals.
