Staglands stop over

Callie and I have used the Entertainment book to explore Wellington's many dining establishments, Friday night adventures and fun trips about town.  We recently visited the Staglands Wildlife reserve in Upper Hutt.  Once cashing in our coupon and picking up a bag of kibble to feed all the animals in the park we received a very enthusiastic greeting.

Oddly enough, peacocks seemed to be the pigeons of Staglands with another group of them around every corner.  None of other ones in the park quite felt like putting on the show as impressive as this fella though.

Baby ducks, always adorable.

Not sure why, but these ducks reminded me of Halloween.  Probably because of their bright orange eyes, but something else about them seemed...spooky.

These good looking creatures are Kune Kune Pigs.   Brought back from the edge of extinction but a couple of Christchurch folks, there are now thousands around the world.

 

This guy was more than happy to perform his talent "Eat a treat" if we were willing to provide the treat.

One of the little ladies hanging around.  We managed to get some treats to the other little ones when Poppa Pig wasn't looking.

The newest additions to the Kune Kune family keeping warm in a no holds barred cuddle-fest.

The mother had perfected the best trick of the park.  Couldn't resist throwing a good portion of our kibble her way, she didn't complain too much either.

 That'll do Donkey, that'll do.

 This little cutie looked to have pulled lawn-mower duty.  Callie was able to distract it for a quick heart to heart.

After reassurance from Callie that this Merino was a professional who was not going to take my fingers off, I got to share some kibble with the worlds most prized wool machine.  Not too bad at making horns either.

This kid was hard a work bouncing around the place playing with the little kids, snagging some snacks and playing "Hide in the rusty farm equipment".  Such hard work of course tuckered the little one out, pretty good for being about a week old.

I am not sure if we arrived at nap time or if the peacocks are just that intimidating, but there were several bunnies like the one below lounging about.  No amount of kibble could coax a hop.

Clear on her way to a fancy Ball this chicken was clearly not going to be under-dressed for the occasion.

Staglands ended up being a very fun visit.  It was a large petting zoo where you could interact with most of the animals and since so many of them were New Zealand natives made the visit all the more meaningful.