Orana Park

Orana Park summed up in one word – AWESOME!!

We headed to the park just after lunch, and the timing could not have been more perfect !!
We managed to line up one animal feeding after another, we just walked around the park following the feeding scheduled and pretty much got to watch every single animal up close up close and personal while the keepers feed them.

When we walked in park to pay they gave us a map at the ticket office with all the feeding times on it, the lady very helpfully told us that the Kiwi’s were due to be feed in just 15 min’s time if we wanted to watch it.
Naturally with our kids been bird nuts of course we would go see it.
We located it on the map, just to the left of the entrance, we thought “sweet we can go their first and carry on looping around the park clockwise”.
As it would turn out it was perfect timing because we just followed the keepers from one feeding to another around the park it was perfect !!

While we waited for the kiwis to be feed we had a look at all the cool geckos, lizards and Frogs.
The Kiwi feeding was pretty cool, you could not take any photos in there as it was night time for the birds so no flash to disturb them. But we got to watch the keeper put out worms for the kiwis to find, it took a few minutes for our eyes to adjust to the dark but once they kid we got a really good view of the Kiwis.

As soon as the Kiwi feeding finished the keepers told everyone that the next feeding would the the Tasmain Devil in 10min time.
This was super helpful and as we carried on around the park after each feeding the keepers would let everyone know where the next one would be.
I had not had this at other zoos we had visited, it was super helpful so we did not miss anything.
We lopped pasted checking out the Emu on our way to watch the Tasmian Devil's feeding.
These dudes were pretty awesome !! we were blown away how close you could see them all and I was surprised how fast they were. The kids loved it !!

The keepers talked about each Devil telling us how old they were and how long they had been at the zoo with them, telling funny stories about there personality’s as well. You could tell they were really passionate about the animals.

The keepers told us all that the Lions were due to be feed in 15min time if we wanted to watch, they even told us that the Tigers had not long been feed and we could go catch them having a snooze after their big feed. The kids raced off to check out the sleeping tigers and sure enough they were catching some zzzz’s.

We then carried on to the Lions in time to watch them do the feeding, you can pay extra to get inside a cage on the back of the truck that feeds them. The kids were freaking out about these people thinking they were the food.

It was pretty awesome to watch you felt like they were so close, they whole time the keepers told you information about the lions and how their pack worked.
After the lions we slowly made out way around to the giraffes, checking out the water buffalo along the way.

We got to the giraffes in time for the feeding, to find out we got to feed them!!!
we were all given some branches to hold out for them to eat !!

It was amazing !! the kids were a bit scared at first to do it but once we had done it they were right in to it.
Because there were not to many people the kids were aloud to just keep looping around and feeding them it was awesome !!! I was so impressed how the keepers really looked after the kids at each feeding making sure they got turns before adults.

After that it was up close and personal with the Rinos!!!! these guys were huge !!!!!

It felt almost a bit scary how close we were to them, but they were just incredible animals.

Their was a very cheeky wee boy rino who liked to pick on the older bigger boys and make his mum defend him from them, it was such a laugh watching him tease the big boys then run and hide behind his mum

I thought it was going to be hard to bet the giraffes and rinos after seeing them up so close and personal.

All Meika wanted to do was see her second favorite animal of all time the Cheater!! (Sharks been her favorite).

The keep told us they were about to feed them and they were going to attempt a run with them and we should go check it out!!

MAN IT WAS COOL !!!!

They have a zip line on there large enclosure that we put something fluffy on and get the boys to chase to earn their treat.

It was so neat to watch !! man they run fast!!!! Meika was on cloud nine!!!!!!
The cheaters were definitely one of our highlights of the trip !! such fast incredible animals.

Don’t worry we definitely checked out all the monkeys as well, Marcus loves them!!
The whole afternoon was incredible, the kids were just giggling and smiling the whole way around.

We had heard a lot of mixed feed back about the park before heading there. I think one thing to keep in mind is that it is a Wild Life Park not a Zoo, so it doesn’t have nice planted paths and landscaped grounds currently.

It is open plan and lots of dirt paths, the enclosures and surrounded by water and kept as close to what they would be in the wild as possible. You can see a lot of work is currently going on and you can see all the hard work and passion that is going in to the park.

It was amazing, not having heaps of wire cages blocking your view made it feel like you were right their in the wild with them.

We spent a good half day exploring the park, we arrived and lunch and left just before closing. I think you could spend the best part of a whole day their if your kids would allow you to, you could also pack a picnic for lunch as their are a lot of places to sit and eat.

All in all it as a fantastic afternoon out, and out of all the zoo’s we have visited so far I loved Orana Park.