A visit to the Butterfly Park

Did you know that there is a butterfly park being developed in Palmerston North?
It's at the back of Apollo Park in Milson and you can find out more about it on the Monarchs In Apollo Park Facebook page.
Yesterday they had an open day for people to visit, find out more about the park and raise some funds for the upkeep and signposting of the park.
We went along at around 1pm and had an awesome time. We hadn't been to the play park there before so Mr Mischief loved having a rummage before we made our way to the back of the park.

We headed over and looked around the beds they have planted out. All the plants there are still small but I can imagine it will look amazing once the plants develop and grow. There were a few Monarch's fluttering around and I managed to get some photos of them as they landed on trees and bushes...

 

We met Melissa from Flutterby Monarch's (who were donating Monarch butterflies to be released) and she showed Mr Mischief a caterpillar and let him hold it! He wasn't too keen to begin with but you could tell he was amazed to have it wriggling and crawling on his hand!

We entered the raffle where for a gold coin donation you could win the opportunity to release a butterfly. I bought two tickets and was amazed when my number and name were called given how many people were there (I'm guessing over 100 people at the time the raffle was drawn). 

I took Mr Mischief to the front and we collected a triangle box containing a Monarch butterfly. I carefully undid it and following instruction from the experts let it climb onto my finger. 

It was an amazing experience and Mr Mischief was entranced! It even stayed perched on my finger as we went back to our place in the crowd to show my hubby. We were able to transfer the butterfly onto Mr Mischiefs hand and I got some great photos before it fluttered away!

It was so awesome to see such a great project happening locally. If you are local I fully recommend liking their Facebook page to keep up to date with events and maybe going for a visit.

They are keen to gather more volunteers that can help with the upkeep of the park as well. I am quite keen to help out some way myself so you might even see me there!