Pukaha National Wildlife Centre — Attraction in North Island

A fabulous open (i.e. not fenced) sanctuary in a handy location. It's easy to get to Pūkaha via SH2, and their visitor centre has a great little gift shop with local treasures, AND a trap shop if you are serious about everyday conservation efforts. The Kākā Cafe (wharekai - thank you, I learned more words in Te Reo!

I was really excited to visit this place and I was not disappointed ! Since the moment your enter until you leave, it was a great experience. The lady at the reception welcomed us in a very pleasant way, taking her time to explain us the map of the wildlife center and tell us little anectodes about the place and it's "residents". The entrance area also has a shop where you can buy a bunch of differents items linked to the local wildlife. The visit starts with a permanent exhibition on the local wildlife and the history of the centre. Even if the first room was so dark it was a bit of a struggle to read the signs, the second room was very informative and interesting. The tree trunk has a very inovative scenography. The rest of the center is made of the forest and its aviaries where you can spot the birds if you are lucky ! We had grey warblers making their techno musical show just for us, from very close. The eels are very easy to spot from a bridge, there were heaps of them and we also saw another fish (a trout?) hanging around with the eel gang. We saw both kiwis in the dark room foraging and playing around together, an amazing moment with those incredible animals. The kiwi talk was very good and informative, the lady was very knowledgeable and patient with the group of kids that was participating. It was school holidays so there were a lot of kids around with all the noise that come with it so think about it when you plan to visit if you want some peace and quiet and more chance to see more birds. But there is longer walks where you can probably get the real bushy experience with less people around. We had two very good pies at the café and a delicious mocha (actually one of the best I had since a while) served by a very smiley and considerate lady (she made us a price because one of the pie was a bit broken) ! Yes ! A 10/10 experience for all the bird...

When planning our tour of NZ we saw this in the travel brochure. As we were drinking from Wellington to Napier seemed a good place to stop. Arrived just before noon so headed immediately to the kiwi house for the talk. Due to a missing direction sign we went in by the out door. Lucky enough to see one kiwi. I went back later and not a sign of them. Took the aviary walk and did not see a single bird. We were told we must go into the walk around aviary, which we did, a couple of little brown birds. No signage to help identification. There are, however, plenty of examples of Māori culture. Had a light lunch in cafe which was ok. Back to see the eels being fed, that was good up to the point when we were given a story about mythical gods. This did not add to my understanding of the ecology, habitat and lifestyle of eels. In my travels I’ve visited many conservation centres in different continents. Most seem to get a good balance between encouraging their breeding programmes and allowing the paying public sight of the animals being conserved. I did not find this here. I felt the public focus was too much on conserving the myths, legends and sanitised culture of the Māori. But I congratulate the centre on the work they do regarding animal...