NZ North Island 2 - Lions!!

After we left Lake Taupo, with three days to go before we flew to the South Island, we decided that we should see some of the North Island above Auckland. So we drove 400km (and the rest!) to a town called Orewa just north of Auckland. On the motorway we passed a go-karting track and John took me there for my first ever go-kart! I was pretty girly about speed, but there were three 20-year old boys on the track as well as us, so with the four of them tearing past me trying to smash each other's karts up I think that was understandable. It was really good fun but I will need a LOT more practice before I do it again in front of people - my best time was twice as long as everyone else's average. John said he's seen slower, but probably not much!

Then we drove north to a little place called Russell, just below the ferry departure point between the two islands, on the recommendation of a guy in a pub in Orewa. It was a nice little harbour town, and the scenery was as relentlessly pretty and green as ever, but nothing special. The next day we had to be back by 5pm with the motorhome and on our flight at 8pm.

But.....John found a flyer for 'Zion Big Cat Experience' just outside Whangarei on our way back to Auckland, and took me there for a (very very early birthday) treat! We found out that they did a 'Cub Encounter' tour, which to me sounded like playing with baby lions for an hour and a half. When they have tiny cubs it is, but when they have adolescents they bring out the best-behaved young lion for you to cuddle and bash around a bit. And when I say young, I mean 15 months, so this cub was BIG!! He was absolutely gorgeous - at the park they have half tawny lions and half white lions, which we hadn't seen before, and which are a lovely pale colour, some of them actually really white.

The trainer who took us round was great, and explained how they hand-rear half of the cubs and leave the rest with their mothers to be 'wild.' They've got white tigers, cheetahs, and loads of lions - the only ones in NZ! When she told us how last year she hand-reared seven of the cubs herself John says I went green! The pictures of the cubs as babies were adorable, and because they're supposed to be tame as possible they handle them a lot, so lots of cub cuddling!



My cub, however, was massive, but really beautiful - he wasn't fazed by the stroking and pulling of his tail and paws and just sat on the table being lovely and watching John and the camera with a (slightly scary??) intensity! They let me stroke him for at least half an hour and pull his tail! Apparently he doesn't mind (!!). It was the most amazing thing, I couldn't believe I was playing with a lion bigger than me!