All creatures great and small

We had more rain last night - even heavier than during the day. It was accompanied by a thunderstorm that lasted for a few hours as well. A real monsoon. The skyline afterwards was very clear, although while it was raining it was only possible to just see the street lights on the freeway about 200m away. Beyond that was solid rain.

It was Wednesday that we went to the Butterfly Park to see the small creatures. It was a hot and steam day. The butterflies were spectacular. There was a huge variety and all flying about. Due to the heat they were more high up in the enclosure than low - but plenty to see anyway. Some even landed on the hands of the children - which they thought was amazing.

Well - maybe not landed - but still beautiful

This is a snake butterfly - wonderful mimicry that God has created.

The scenery was very nice as well.

On Thursday we booked a driver to take us to the Elephant Reserve. This was a 1.5 to 2 hour drive out of the city into the hilly countryside where everywhere you looked was lush rain Forrest.  It was a beautiful drive, especially as the road wound up through the mountains. We stopped at Deerland first, about 3 km from the elephant park. There where not only deer, while you could go in a and feed but, cats (in cages - strange to us hey), rabbits, guinea pigs, chipmunks, snakes - one you could hold as well, lizards, birds, parrots, ferret and a honey bear. We got to have a photo with the bear while it was being fed.

Deanne did not want to get close to the snake.

Just before arriving at the elephant park, we had a go getting dressed in some traditional bark clothing and blowing a dart through the blow pipe to pop a balloon. It was surprising easy to aim and get the target.

At the elephant park, we viewed a video about the relocation of some wild elephants to a rain forest sanctuary. It was sad to see what the elephants had to go through, but it is also understandable given the size of the animals. The video was also a sales pitch to try and raise money for the continued efforts of the work done at the elephant park. This does seem a little strange as it is a government funded activity and they only ask for donations from visitors rather than paying an entry price. We got to feed the elephants and even have a ride on them.

Normally there is also the opportunity to bath with them in the river but due to to very high water levels this was not possible. In fact, we could see the increase in the water levels from the river from when we arrived and left. It had gone up about 30cm.

On the way home again we were driving through the mountains again and could see the great contrast in the dark monsoon clouds and the steam from the forest below. It was amazing.