Staglands Reserve

After a pretty rough week, Jen and I decided to head out for the day and spent the morning at Staglands nature reserve which is in Upper Hutt about 50 minuites out of Wellington. It is home to a wide variety of ducks, birds, parrots, pigs, donkeys, goat, deer, a horse and some guinea pigs! It also had an Old Bush Settlement. We both had a bag of feed to ensure our popularity with the animals. The ducks are certainly well rehearsed and know that the people wandering round are extremely likely to have food! I think next time I will go, I will not wear jandals so that i'm not so paranoid about my feet getting pecked.
After making our way through all the ducks, we arrived at the Kune Kune Kainga which is a unique NZ breed of pig! There must be a funny caption to go with this pic of the very ugly pig. He was quite a bully of the other smaller pig in the pen!

We made our way round the track passing through the Kea Gully(A Kea being a rare mountain parrot), the donkey stables, a trout pond, the toe toe avery and accros the river on a swing bridge.









We had a bit of a laugh at the recreation of an abandoned Akatarawa settlement, as we had a drink in the bar and ended up in jail.

















Then of course were the goats, horse and deer! After enjoying lunch in the cafe we made our way to the shopping mall and had an afternoon of retail therapy - I didn't buy any shoes though!!!!!!!