Welcome to Butterfly Hill - Image: Elaine de Wet
What a stunning little place of paradise! Butterfly Hill is a privately-owned butterfly sanctuary on Petrie Creek Road in Nambour. Walk amongst the butterflies, with classical music providing a tranquil ambience to the whole experience. Butterflies flit here and there, sometimes alighting on one's clothing - a unique natural interaction with these extraordinary gifts of nature.
Tranquil surrounds - Image: Elaine de Wet
To provide a unique, high-quality eco-tourism experience, showcasing the diversity, life cycle and astounding beauty of Australian butterflies and their associated host plants. By way of informative display and demonstration, raise public awareness of both the need to and methods of, conserving butterflies.
The Mission Statement truly says it all.
Stick insects make great pets - Images: Elaine de Wet
The educational walk through
Butterfly House and Eco Nursery is enhanced by Teena, the owner, who delightfully shares her passion for butterflies and stick insects, utilising easy to understand language. A bonus is learning about the
Titan Stick Insects and the
Spiny Leaf insects. I might mention here that these peculiar little insects apparently make the perfect pet - they don't need to be walked, they don't bark and they only need to be fed once a week.
Butterflies drinking nectar - Image: Elaine de Wet
Butterfly Hill is the ideal activity for children, who will love the various cycles of the butterfly life, starting from a teeny, weeny egg on a leaf, which then hatches into a larva - my favourite part,
not the caterpillar. The caterpillar moults (losing its old skin) numerous times as it grows - all these stages will be shown to you by Teena. It then turns into a pupa (chrysalis), which is its resting stage. The chrysalis is usually brown or green to match the foliage around it, trees, leaves or branches. This resting stage is also the changing stage when the caterpillar starts its metamorphosis, turning it into a butterfly. It changes really quickly and the chrysalis opens to reveal a stunning butterfly.
Butterflies and caterpillars - Images: Elaine de Wet
During school holidays, over weekends or just about any time (except Mondays and Tuesdays) Butterfly Hill and Eco Nursery is an affordable outing for the whole family. The children will get to interact with the butterflies and stick insects and learn a heap load too.
Gift Shop - Images: Elaine de Wet
Butterfly Hill has its own very pretty little gift shop, with an assortment of butterfly artwork, childrens' clothing and even jewellery made from genuine butterfly wings. Take time out, browse and take something butterfly-ish home or perhaps buy a host plant to encourage butterflies into your garden.
Everybody loves butterflies!
Opening hours for Butterfly Hill are Wednesday to Saturday from 10.00am to 4.00pm and Sundays from 10.00am to 3.00pm.
Adult Entry is only $8 and children, three to 15 years, only $5.
PLUS Sundays from 10.00am to 3.00pm - Image: Butterfly Hill FB
