Set amongst the native trees and beautiful forests of Rotorua, Rainbow Springs Nature Park offers a fun-packed and educational experience for the whole family. Learn about New Zealand’s fascinating natural history and meet the creatures who call this great land of ours home. Learn about some of our favourite animals in our special Encounters. These exciting sessions let you get closer than ever to our team of experts as they share with you their stories about our trout, native birds including the kiwi, and reptiles. The park is open from 8:30am until 10:30pm (Summer) or 9:30pm (Winter).

Kiwi
Kiwi are on display in the park in a purpose-built nocturnal enclosure. Take a few minutes for your eyes to adjust, then see these quirky birds as they explore. Behind the Scenes tours of Kiwi Encounter, New Zealand's largest kiwi hatchery, are available during the day for a small additional fee. See where kiwi eggs are incubated and hatched, and where the young chicks are raised. The tours run on the hour from 10am - 4pm.
Visitors also have the option to use your entry ticket again in the evening (no extra charge) to see more kiwi in our outdoor walk-through kiwi enclosure, under the starry night sky.

The Big Splash
The Big Splash isn't just the adrenalin rush at the end as you accelerate, creating a spectacular and exhilarating plume of water; it is a nine-minute journey telling you some of New Zealand's unique stories. To ride the Big Splash, children must be aged five (5) or over AND be taller than 106cm. Children aged five and over, who are between 106cm and 135cm must be accompanied by an adult. The adult needs to be seated next to the child and provide supervision during the full ride. Open from 9.30am to 5.00pm daily, the cost of the Big Splash ride is included in your entry ticket and you can ride it as many times as you wish, although you will have to rejoin the queue at the end of each ride.

The Bird Show
Set in our purpose-built auditorium, watch our team of exotic parrots do what they do best – play and entertain. A show filled with fascinating facts and engaging antics performed by our colourful and sometimes noisy exotic parrots. Our feathered entertainers don’t just fly, some of them will also show off their amazing intellects and skills with a range of games and tricks, which are sure to be crowd-pleasers. We run one show each day at 11.30am. In the school holidays, we run an extra show at 2.30pm each day. All shows are weather dependent. Guests must be seated in the Bird Show auditorium five minutes before show times. Strictly no late admittance, as it can cause the birds to fly away!

Close Encounters
Blue-Tongued Lizard Close Up - Meet our reptile keeper at the exotic reptile area; see an Australian blue-tongued lizard up close! Interactive at keeper's discretion. Photos may be available with Magic Memories. 10:30am Wed / Fri / Sun.
Water Dragon Close Up - Meet our reptile keeper at the exotic reptile area, see an Australian water dragon up close! Interactive at keeper’s discretion. Photos may be available with Magic Memories. 10:30am Tue / Thurs / Sat.
Native Reptiles - Watch our native geckos and skinks get fed and learn what makes them unique to New Zealand. 1:30pm Tue / Thurs / Sat.
Eel Feeding - Meet at the eel feeding platform. Listen to our keeper talk about our native long-finned eel and maybe you will get to see one feed. 3:00pm Tue / Thurs / Sat.

Bird Encounters
Canopy Aviary - Walk into our canopy aviary and help us feed our birds! Feed the kākāriki and watch their natural ground foraging behaviour, hear our tui sing and see our huge kereru up close. 9:00am Tue / Thurs / Sat.
Exotic Birds - Come down to our colourful native bird exhibits and talk to the bird keeper about the species we have on show and their individual quirks. Watch lorikeets get their favourite nectar feed, watch us enrich different birds and if you are lucky one may even talk to you! 10:00am Tue / Thurs / Sat.
Antipodes Island Parakeet - Meet at the Antipodes Island Parakeets enclosure and watch our keeper interact and demonstrate the natural foraging behaviour of this very rare parakeet. 1:00pm Tue / Thurs / Sat.
Kaka - Meet our bird keeper at the kaka enclosure to watch our playful bush parrot play with enrichment items and get fed. 9:00am Wed / Fri / Sun.
Weka - Meet our keeper at the weka enclosure. Watch the notoriously shy and endangered North Island weka sneak up to grab food and puzzle over enrichment items. 10:00am Wed / Fri / Sun.
Kea - Meet at the kea enclosure through the front entrance, and help our bird keeper enrich our very clever male kea! Watch them solve puzzles for food rewards and learn some handy new tricks from the keeper. 1:00pm Mon / Wed / Fri / Sun.
Morepork - Learn all about this silent night bird from her keeper, and see what she's having for dinner! 3:30pm Tue - Sun.

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See and Do

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Shopping

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