Dawes Family in New Zealand

Owlcatraz

Sunday morning arrived early at just after 5am, Bethany asking someone to stop snoring will stay with us forever, the funniest thing to hear ‘excuse me, excuse meee, can someone stop snoring please’. Of course she was talking to Dad.

We packed up and got ready quickly and headed out, we really didn’t want to spend more time than we had to in the motel, so we headed into Levin, grabbed a coffee and then went and played on the amazing play park they have there.

We then headed for our morning destination – Owlcatraz.

We have passed Owlcatraz which is in a place called Shannon, a few times over the last few years, but as we have been heading to or back from somewhere we have never really had enough time. We arrived just after 9am (opening time) but were advised the tours don’t start till 10am, but that was fine, we grabbed a complimentary cuppa and headed out to meet the animals in the little sanctuary. Bethany played on the swings, chatted with the talking Cockatoo and met some really really cute chinchillas.

We were greeted by Don – a man of native land to us, recognising and enjoying his rich Scottish accent. He took us round the sanctuary, we got to see the old Shannon jail house and then a meet and greet with some Weka birds. We then headed on and went into a owl enclosure where we saw owls up close living in a simulated environment. Really awesome to see.

It was interesting to see a little plaque that commemorated those that helped restore Owlcatraz after the big storm in July 2008. It took us a minute to listen to Don’s story of the damage and then realise that that was when we stayed in Levin and were hit by that awful storm! You can read about that post here, we didn’t realise just how much damage the storm had caused.

On the video below Don simulated the noise of a Weka call by a recording, within seconds the Weka in front of us started shouting and then all of them around us did too. He said to imagine the days when the grounds were overrun with them and there was no other noise – imagine the sound! He also he said that its funny when a fire engine goes past and the birds start shouting after it!

Then we headed up through the farm land where we met a Kune Kune Pig that did tricks like a dog for treats! We then went round and met donkeys, ducks, deers and ostriches. Saving the best till last we were offered to enter a field where a cow called Big Snow was. Being absolutely petrified of cows I just couldn’t face it, but Bethany wouldn’t go in unless I did, so I was forced!

Now this cow was HUGE, no kidding. At over 6 feet tall and weighing in close to 2000kg’s I have never seen anything like it in my life. Check out the photo below of Michael stroking the cow and how big it is next to him! As predicted I had to peel myself off the outer fence to get out, I wasn’t going anywhere near that thing!!

Such a nice place and lovely people too. We were made to feel very welcome. It did make me laugh that people had never seen a deer close up before or that they got very excited about feeding ducks. I suppose we take things for granted with growing up in the country as children and all this was pretty normal to us. There were Pheasants there too and it was funny to see people perplexed, asking what it was - they had never seen one before!

A lovely morning, would definitely recommend it. Don was amazing, and so lovely, his tale telling was something you could listen to all day, a man of many a good story I’m sure. Everything about the morning was just so interesting and lovely, and the day wasn’t over yet…