{"id":187,"date":"2017-11-20T03:51:04","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T03:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bricoadventures.com\/?p=187"},"modified":"2017-11-20T03:51:04","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T03:51:04","slug":"bigbirdfarmstay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bricoadventures.com\/index.php\/2017\/11\/20\/bigbirdfarmstay\/","title":{"rendered":"Christmas with Ostrich Eggs at Big Bird Bed & Breakfast"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a somewhat surprising yet not uninteresting turn of events in the middle of our journey through New Zealand, we ended up at a farm stay in the central part of the North Island. \u00a0We arrived at the Big Bird B&B<\/a> in the afternoon on Christmas Day, after flying into Auckland and then driving two hours south. \u00a0We were welcomed by our friendly hosts, Ann & Russ. \u00a0Previously unknown to us, it turns out that they live on a farm with a large assortment of animals, all used to interacting with people. \u00a0None 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!<\/p>\n

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Ostriches hanging out with their ancestor, the Moa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Guests are invited on a free farm tour every night at 6pm; visitors are charged $5. \u00a0Ann was busy tidying up the rooms for a full house of guests so Russ was in charge of the tour. \u00a0We started off in the ostrich pen.\u00a0 Russ shared that you typically wouldn’t be able to get so close to ostriches as they tend to be very territorial, so we were a bit timid at first. \u00a0However, he could tell they were very welcoming at that moment with no signs of aggression… so why not.<\/p>\n

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Just a casual stroll with an ostrich<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While we walked around the lot, the two ostriches (who seemed to think they were also human) weaved in and out of the group as they followed us across the field. \u00a0One of them was not fond of the farm cat and took an aggressive stance upon spotting her, but the cat was quickly shooed away and all was well again. \u00a0They were very up close and personal – at one point pecking Brittany on the back of the neck (noticing a shirt tag) and at Nico’s shoelaces.<\/p>\n

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Ostriches looking out over their kingdom<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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\u00a0 Portraits of the inviting farm animals<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

From there, we visited miniature breeds of bulls, cows, pigs, cats, donkeys, horses and many other normal breed animals. \u00a0Afterwards Ann informed us that this was Russ’s first attempt at giving a tour, but he did a fantastic job answering questions and entertaining us with jokes.<\/p>\n

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Lone miniature donkey<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rooms were nice, rustic yet clean. We spent the rest of the evening enjoying our previously made egg sandwiches (made in anticipation of store closures on Christmas) and wine with our hosts and the rest of the B&B guests (a family from Hawaii and mother\/son from NZ), which made for a memorable Christmas dinner with great conversation.\u00a0 In the morning, we were treated to a fresh ostrich egg scramble that was simply superb \u2013 another first.<\/p>\n

We were only looking for a place to spend the night on our way to the glowworm caves in Waitomo but ended up having a really unique, memorable experience!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a somewhat surprising yet not uninteresting turn of events in the middle of our journey through New Zealand, we ended up at a farm stay in the central part of the North Island. \u00a0We arrived at the Big Bird B&B in the afternoon on Christmas Day, after flying into Auckland and then driving two […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":195,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-land"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bricoadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bricoadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bricoadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bricoadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bricoadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=187"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/bricoadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":203,"href":"https:\/\/bricoadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/187\/revisions\/203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bricoadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bricoadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bricoadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bricoadventures.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}