Why you’ll love Hamilton Island Wildlife:

Central location. Hamilton Island Wildlife is conveniently located on the resort side of the island.

Unique experiences. Get to know all kinds of Australian marsupials, snakes, lizards, koalas and kangaroos. You may even meet the park’s own giant crocodile!

Guided tour. Take a fun guided tour with one of the experienced keepers who will help you feed, talk to, and touch Australian animals.

It’s a fun day out. When you’re done exploring the park, you can enjoy a coffee and a light lunch with the koalas at the Wildlife Park Cafe, which is open daily from 8:00 am.
Australian animal encounters. Get up close and personal with some of Australia’s most popular wildlife! This includes koalas, dingoes, pythons and lizards!

VIP Animal Experience. Enjoy exploring the famous local wildlife at a relaxed pace with a 30-minute private/small group tour led by one of our experienced keepers and 4 keepsake photos to capture the fun.

Meet the Koalas

Come and meet one of our friendly koalas. The keepers will take you to the Café exhibit where you can get to know her better. Close enough to touch and smell the eucalyptus. The keepers will take a digital photo of you and the koala and send it to your email the same day.

Meeting with a reptile

Snakes and lizards have more personality than you think. Keepers will bring our wonderful reptiles to your cafe. You can meet a lizard or snake and learn a little about how cool they really are. You can get a digital photo of you holding one of our amazing reptiles and we will email it to you the same day.

Meet the Dingo

Come down to the cafe and meet our Australian wild dogs Albury, Piper or Cohen. Keepers will come to the coffee shop with Dingoes so you can sit with one and learn about their unique history and how they became a symbol of the Australian wild animal. We will take a digital photo and send it to you via email the same day.

Koala VIP

We will take you to their Café where you can get to know them better. Have a digital photo of you and the koala taken, then head to the koala exhibit and spend some quality personal VIP time with the keeper and the rest of our koala group. Spend 30 minutes learning about our special individuals and about wild koalas, their amazing lives, habitats and how we can protect them. Take more photos of you and your new cuddly friends and we’ll email them to you the same day.

VIP reptiles

Head up to our reptile deck and the keepers will bring out some of our gorgeous reptiles. You can spend 30 minutes of VIP time with our keeper and meet four of them. You can touch, hold, feel and learn a little bit about how cool they really are. You can get digital photos of you holding each of the amazing reptiles and we will email them to you the same day.

VIP Dingo

Come up and spend time in the Dingo exhibit with all three of our Dingos Albury, Piper and Cohen and one of our knowledgeable keepers. You’ll get 30 minutes of VIP time to sit with them and learn about their unique story and how they became an icon of Australian wildlife.

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The Waitomo community itself is small, although the village does attract many temporary workers who live there as well. The word “Waitomo” is formed by the Maori words “wai” – water and “tomo” – funnel; thus, the whole word can be translated as “water passing through an opening”.

It is truly a masterpiece of nature, which it has labored over for many millions of years. For centuries, the ocean ruled here, creating bizarre outgrowths of limestone and mysterious intricacies of passages. Then the water receded, creating a system of about 150 caves. The most famous of these is Glowworm Cave. It is inhabited by amazing creatures called Arachnocampa Luminosa. These are fireflies, which can be found only in New Zealand. Their green-blue glow makes the vault of the cave look like a starry sky on a frosty night. It’s really better to see it once… And also to feel and hear it: it smells extremely pleasant here, and in the Cathedral Hall of the cave on Christmas night they sing a cappella. Fans of extreme sports are advised to take part in rafting on the “black” water.

So, tourists come to Waitomo caves to see… the starry sky. This is how the ceilings of the cave look with the larvae of fireflies Arachnocampa luminosa, which, according to scientists, glow mainly from hunger. And the more acute hunger – the brighter the glow.

Thus, the researchers say, the larvae lure insects into their traps – threads of silk, which this little thing spins, hangs from the ceiling and makes them hang. In fact, other researchers have found that the amazing fireflies may well do without insects, and happily feed on fungal spores, which do not need to be lured anywhere. In addition, thousands of glowing from hunger larval ventricles are able to “turn off”, afraid of the approach of curious tourists. So the marvelous illumination in the cave darkness is simply the tiny creatures’ quest for beauty and perfection. These Caves are believed by some scientists to be more than two million years old.

The limestone formations surrounding the Caves Region have been the center of increasingly popular tourism and speleology since as early as 1900. Initially, the Caves were initially visited mainly by impromptu excursions conducted by the local Māori population. The Waitomo Caves were then placed under government supervision and since 1904 have become a permanent pilgrimage site for tourists, with numbers increasing year on year. Today there are many tour companies, large and small, specializing in guided tours throughout the Caves, from easily accessible areas with hundreds of tourists per hour during the peak winter season, to extreme speleological sporting events in difficult to access cave systems that can only be seen by a few tourists per day.

A visit to Waitomo Caves was ranked 14th in the Automobile Association’s 2007 “101 Kiwi must-do’s” survey of the most popular tourist destinations among over 20,000 New Zealand motorists, and in 2004 the peak tourist visitation to the Caves was recorded at approximately 400,000 visitors.

Waitomo Cave Complex is: Waitomo Cave, Ruakuri Cave, Aranui Cave and Gardner’s Gut. They are world famous for their stunning stalactites and stalagmites, as well as for the presence of a large colony of fireflies (Arachnocampa luminosa). In the total darkness of the Caves, the fireflies shine brightly like stars on a cloudless night.

Waitomo is easier to reach by car from the town of Te Kuiti (only a few minutes), but hiking there is also popular. The caves are open daily without weekends and holidays: 9.00 am – 5.30 pm.

The caves were first explored in 1887 by local chief Tane Tioranu and English naturalist Fred Mays. At the time, local Māori people were aware of the existence of the caves, but the underground caverns had not been explored. Tane Tioranu and Fred Mays built a raft from flax stalks, took a light and swam to the caves. Once inside the caves, they were blinded by the light from the many bright lights. Once their eyes got used to the darkness they saw many lights reflecting off the water, looking up they found the ceilings dotted with many insects. Once back they continued to further explore the caves and the insects found in the caves.

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Hamilton Gardens waterfall

Hamilton Gardens Falls is the only waterfall in the Hamilton area. The waterfall is located in Hamilton Gardens, a public garden in south Hamilton. It is most beautiful in late fall.

Hamilton Gardens Falls is about a 10-minute drive from downtown Hamilton or 1.5-2 hours from Auckland. The road surface is always compacted.

From Auckland, head south on SH-1 until you reach Hamilton. In Hamilton, follow the SH-1, cross the Waikato River, and then you will see the botanical garden on your right. Follow the SH-1 for another kilometer, then at the roundabout turn right to the “Gate 1” entrance and follow the signs until you reach the official parking lot (approximately 500 m). There is a huge parking lot with additional parking on the grass. The Botanical Garden has toilets, a café, and picnic tables.

Follow the footpath around the lake and in the middle of the walk you will see a waterfall. From here you can either continue the walk or return.

The best colorful photos can be taken in late fall or early winter.

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Hamilton Lake Domain has a long history as one of the best parks in Hamilton. It is an important recreational facility for residents of Hamilton City and beyond within walking distance of the central business district. Hamilton Lake Domain is a hub for a variety of water and land-based activities and also offers a unique ecological environment in the heart of Hamilton City.

Lake Rotoroa is designed for water-based activities such as yachting, windsurfing, canoeing, jet skiing, model boating, dragon boat rides, waka-ama, raft racing, and a number of informal events.

Innes Common to the east and west of Lake Domain Drive caters to outdoor activities and sports, including hockey and cricket. Innes Common is home to the Gallagher Hockey Center. It also hosts organized events, including fairs, kite days, family days, the Waikato Balloon Festival, fun runs, concerts, school vacation programs, orienteering, and more.

The rest of the park area is designed for passive or casual recreation and is available for events such as Candlelight Carols. The esplanade path around the lake is a popular place for fitness and a walking route. On our main playground next to the Veranda Cafe, children can play while their guardians enjoy a coffee overlooking the lake, which can also be enjoyed from the covered picnic area in the renovated residential complex.

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