Big Bird Farm Stay

In a somewhat surprising yet not uninteresting turn of events, we ended up at a farm stay in the central part of the North Island on Christmas Day. We arrived at the Big Bird B&B in the afternoon on Christmas Day, after flying to Auckland and driving two hours south. We were welcomed by our friendly hosts, Ann & Russ. It turns out that they lived on a farm with a large assortment of animals. None of said animals are native to New Zealand, with the exception of the statue of a 12 ft Moa (which is extinct), but it was still a great time!

Guests are invited on a free farm tour every night at 6pm; visitors are charged $5. Ann was busy tidying up the rooms for a full house of guests so Russ was in charge of the tour. We started off in the ostrich pen. This was a bit intimidating because Russ shared that you typically wouldn't be able to get so close to ostriches because they tend to be territorial. However, he could tell they happened to be very welcoming at the moment with no signs of aggression...

We walked around the lot while the two ostriches seemed to think they were also human and weaved in and out of the group, following us across the field. One of them was not fond of the farm cat and took an aggressive stance but the cat was quickly shooed away and all was well again. They were very up close and personal - at one point pecking Brittany on the back of the neck (noticing a tag) and at Nico's shoelaces.

From there, we visited miniature breeds of bulls, cows, pigs, cats, donkeys, horses and many other normal breed animals. According to Ann, this apparently was Russ's first and only tour that he's given but he did a fantastic job answering questions and entertaining us with jokes.

The rooms were nice, rustic yet clean. We spent the rest of the evening enjoying our previously made egg sandwiches and wine with the rest of the B&B guests (a family from Hawaii and mother/son from NZ) which made for a memorable Christmas dinner.Read more