Butterfly World

Every week thousands of butterfly pupae are flown around the world to butterfly parks. On my birthday, (a wet, blustery day in July) I asked my mother to bring her hiking boots and join us on a Boland adventure in Paarl. Being a very kind and goodnatured mother, she obliged. I think she was secretly hoping that my birthday 'treat' was not going to be a miserable climb in the rain up the barren outcrop of rocks nearby known as Paarl Rocks. Possibly not the most ideal 'treat', with a 4 week old baby, three year old and retired Mum. Needless to say it was a great relief, and pleasant surprise for her when the decoy hiking boots weren't required, and we instead walked into a tropical paradise of butterflies.

Butterfly World in Paarl South Africa is the largest free flying park for butterflies in Southern Africa. Visitors move freely between the butterflies, parots and other interesting animals. Infact it was such an impressive experience that my husband and I took our two daughters for another visit to Butterfly World last week.

The concept originated in the UK and such enclosed parks can be found in countries throughout the world. Tropical butterflies are raised on breeding farms in countries such as Costa Rica, Philippines, Malaysia and China. Pupae are flown to display parks where the butterflies emerge into their tropical gardens. Each year these parks are visited by thousands of visitors and now thanks to the initiative taken by two Capetonian women, South Africans have the opportunity to experience this too. (Below I have added a link to a website which aims to list the details for every such park in the world.)



A new wing to the tropical garden is the Reptile Bay where Madagascan reptiles, Australian skinks and bearded dragons and a couple of noisy parrots are housed. For those wanting something less 'girly', the The Martin Filmer Spider Room may be the ticket housing indigenous and exotic spiders and scorpions.

Another attraction is a number of large iguana roaming freely between the visitors, plants and butterflies. It reminded me of the iguanas we saw on the Belize Challenge hanging out in the trees above the rivers. As part of the challenge we were stripped of our food supplies and had to forage from the tropical forest for a number of days. After a day or so the iguanas started to look quite tasty... they are very hard to catch though!And at over a metre in length, with prickly spines all down their backs they are rather intimidating too.

A worthwhile visit. Have a look at the list below. THere may be a Butterfly World near you.
http://butterflywebsite.com/gardens/index.cfm

Butterfly World
P.O.Box 41, Klapmuts, 7625, South Africa

Tel: 021-8755628
Fax: 021-8755230
Website: www.butterflyworld.co.za
Email: esther@yebo.co.za

























Location: Paarl, Western Cape