Rainbow Springs Kiwi Wildlife Park
Rainbow Springs Kiwi Wildlife Park - an award-winning tourism attraction and an icon of New Zealand tourism - first opened near Rotorua in 1932. Spread over a 22-acre park with a natural fresh water spring, Rainbow Springs is a conservation and breeding haven for endangered New Zealand species such as kiwi and tuatara.
The park offers a unique wildlife experience for visitors, who can see animals in their natural environment, both during the day and night. Attractions include New Zealand’s first ‘open to view’ Kiwi hatchery, and a range of wildlife including trout, tuatara and native birds. The park became involved in kiwi conservation in 1995 with the arrival of an orphaned egg, and the hatchery is now the largest kiwi hatching facility in New Zealand. Eggs are harvested in 13 areas around the North Island where brown kiwi are found.
The park is open for day and night experiences including evening strolls and a hosted dinner activity. Clever night time lighting enhances the evening experience. Visitors can view adult birds foraging and feeding in a purpose-built nocturnal Kiwi House, or see conservation work in progress and learn more about the iconic bird in the Kiwi Encounter hatchery and nursery.
The Big Splash is a nine-minute journey through time that features narrative and realistic animation bringing to life dinosaurs and extinct giant birds such as moa and the prehistoric Haast eagle, and documenting the impact of human settlement on the natural environment. The interactive attraction was designed to entertain and inform tourists about New Zealand’s ecological evolution. Big Splash can cater for 500 tourists per hour with a fleet of eight-seater boats that depart every minute.
The boats travel through a native forest canopy, past a Maori pa settlement and a European timber mill town. Life-sized moa, Haast eagle and dinosaur models inhabit the dense one-hectare forest which has been populated with 7000 native trees and plants to represent how Aotearoa New Zealand once was.
An onboard commentary interprets the arrival, and later destruction, of native bird and plant species as the land is settled and exploited by the human settlers arriving from the Pacific Islands and Europe. The gentle boat journey ends with a 12-metre drop on the waterslide. Access to the ride is included as part of the Rainbow Springs admission price, and it operates daily between 9am and 5pm.
The show features a flock of exotic birds that are currently in training. Rainbow Springs attractions include tours of the Kiwi Encounter nursery and hatchery, the fascinating tuatara, walking and bird spotting in the extensive native and exotic forest, and feeding wild trout in the Rainbow Pool.
