Himself and I have been trying to fit a trip back to this animal park into our Christchurch schedules for quite a few years now. I had only ever been once and it is one of the things Himself misses. So this trip we were going! Come hell or high water!
Thankfully we didn’t have to contend with either of those things, and we just drove in one day when we had cleared schedule.
As we walked to the front entrance there was a sign advertising being able to be in the lions enclosure with them while they were being fed, a chance that of course Himself and I jumped at!
It was one of the most amazing experiences I’ve ever had! When I put it up there with the tiger walking in the Gold Coast, and the Shark diving in Manly, this was definitely up there!
It was a lovely day, the weather was perfect, and we walked around trying to catch as many up close feeding experiences as we could.
Actually feeding the giraffes is always a good time. Playing tug of war with their strong dark blue tongues.
As an added bonus, from what we could see, we witnessed the very first moments in this baby alpaca’s life too. Not the actual birth, but certainly its first wobbly steps.
We ended the day with the final feeding at the cheetah cage.
Himself was looking forward to watching them sprint up the cage chasing the food as he remembered from previous visits. But this was a new bunch of cheetahs, babies that were still being trained to stalk and chase their food.
They were being fed possums which made Himself happy and made me roll my eyes. (The possums are protected native species in Australia, and an introduced pest in New Zealand.)
In our next exciting episode we’re off on the next leg of our trip; stay tuned for Sydney!
ghoti industries 
Looks like a fantastic day out! 🙂 Glad you were able to make it at last!
It was wonderful!