This post may be a little late this week, as we took the grand kids to a local “wildlife park”. Which leads me not so subtly into the topic of the week.
As kids we used to go to Granny and Grandpa’s house quite frequently. I recall sleeping over at one time, and in later years my sister lived with my Granny. I recall it being fun, but that was mostly because we could poke around in their house and garden. They had a long garden with a goldfish pond, a few apple trees, a garden and a large wooden shed.
What I don’t remember is being taken out to “wildlife parks” or similar by my grand parents. In fact, I don’t remember going out with my grand parents anywhere. I’m pretty sure that we must have gone out with them, but it must have been rare and we probably only walked around the block or something.
We did use to have big family parties and I do remember my Granny being at my Uncles and Aunties’ houses during family parties. My Grandpa died fairly young so I don’t remember him at them.
It’s different with our grand kids. I don’t know if it is because we are much more active than my grand parents were or because we are able to drive them to places. Neither of my grand parents drove that I can remember.
In contrast we fairly often drive our grand kids on trips to various places, sometimes in conjunction with their parents, sometimes without.
On Sunday, their uncle (my son) and his wife decided to take my grand kids to a local “wildlife park”, called Staglands. I went along and so did my daughter, their mother. Staglands is a fair way out of town, in a beautiful picturesque valley. My daughter drove the kids there, and I drove my son and daughter-in-law.
We didn’t stop to take photos of the valley on the way there, as we travelled independently and didn’t want to keep them waiting. As it turned out, we got there first. The road is a secondary route between a major north-south valley (the Hutt Valley) and the Coast Road.
It is a fairly quiet road, most of the time, so is a favourite road for serious cyclists, the ones with lycra suits who are not afraid of some fairly serious hills. I’ve no problem with them, but they did make it difficult on the narrow road at times.
Staglands is 17km up this road, so that part of the trip took a while, but we got there and parked, waiting for my daughter and the grand kids. They all hopped out the car and admired the guinea fowl and peacocks which roamed the car park.
I was informed that the brown peacocks were the female ones then we paid the entry fees and went in. The path bypassed the café and wound down to a couple of small lakes, with the usual wildfowl, mainly ducks, including one small survivor of a presumably larger brood.
On the way it passed a small cul-de-sac with a “cave”, Tracey’s Cave, with a constant splash into a pool of water which created interesting ripples.
We then followed the main path up to a barn where there was a fire burning in a barrel. Did I forget to mention that we bought small packets of marshmallows and sticks at the gatehouse? Ooops. Great fun was had toasting the marshmallows, something that I’ve never seen the point of, until now.
Just down from the barn was a small paddock with a number of Kune Kune pigs. These are fairly small, hairy pigs. Kune Kune are friendly and docile animals although I would not like to be in the paddock with them. The kids, Hamish, Duncan and Louise, loved feeding them out of the small packets of feed that we bought at the gatehouse.
A walk-in aviary was next, which contained Kea. These are a large alpine parrot, which in the wild are attracted to people and their cars. Naturally people stop to see them and the Kea respond with thievery and destruction. They pinch sandwiches and pull the rubber bits from cars.
The Kea in the aviary were less exuberant than that preferring to preen out of reach, but other birds, small parrots, were friendlier and would sit on one’s hand. A passing sparrow stopped by overhead on the chicken wire roof.
The stables contained horse, donkeys and small lambs and goats, all of which got a ration out of the small bags of feed. It almost seemed that these larger animals were taking the small portions simply to be friendly.
Next was a larger aviary, planted with toe toe, a large tussocky grass with plumed flower heads, much like “Pampas grass” which is well known in some other countries. Small birds, such as finches, cockatoos and budgerigars live in this aviary.
The kids all love the “swing bridge” which connects one half of the park with the half on the other side of the stream. The first area is a mock recreation of small settlement from around the 1900s, which has been used as a set for films. Up from there is a large pond with a walkway, with on one side, a wooden railway with a push cart, usually a hit with kids, but for some reason unused today. Though I did push Duncan along in it.
After the pond was a large open paddock with deer, sheep and goats. A notice on the gate mentioned that the animals in the paddock could be “quite pushy”. A quick scramble and Hamish, Duncan and I had a glorious view of the valley, only slightly spoiled by a large logged area on the opposite side of the valley.
Then it was back down to the gatehouse and the café for re-fuelling. Hamish managed a couple of large sausage rolls (a mistake – I got the order wrong, it should have only one!) and was still hungry. Duncan went for a more sophisticated hot dogs and chips, while Louise claimed to be satisfied with an ice-cream though she did help herself to he mother’s chips. Tim (my son) and Kaz (his wife) both had nachos. I had a bacon and egg panini.
Staglands is a great place for that sort of trip and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It is great to be able to spend time with the grand kids, and it a shame that, for whatever reason, we didn’t get to do similar with our grand parents.
Me on the net 