Butterflies, anyone?

Butterfly World is a hive of activ­ity over week­ends, which is only to be expec­ted if you con­sider that it's vir­tu­ally designed with chil­dren in mind, or cer­tainly the young at heart.

But the sur­prise came, des­pite our hav­ing read up on Butterfly World before head­ing out, when we entered the covered garden (after musc­ling our way through the gift shop filled to the brim with but­ter­fly mem­or­ab­ilia, sweets and such like) to dis­cover a trop­ical para­dise filled not only with but­ter­flies but a whole heap of other won­der­ful anim­als too — like mar­moset mon­keys, incred­ible iguanas, other liz­ards, huge spiders (good thing that they're in locked glass boxes), scor­pi­ons, snakes and a vari­ety of very vocal birds!

The 1 000 square metre green­house – the largest but­ter­fly park in South Africa — is a feast for sore eyes. In fact, the but­ter­flies play second fiddle to all the other activ­ity both at knee level (vari­ous fish ponds) and eye level (see pre­vi­ous para but add a won­der­ful selec­tion of foliage, exotic plants and con­veni­ently placed benches for tired moms) ... But the but­ter­flies we did see, con­sid­er­ing that it was a winter's day, and pos­sibly due to the trop­ical con­di­tions (be pre­pared to peel off the lay­ers if you are not a fan of humid­ity!) were incred­ibly beautiful.

It's just that, well, a but­ter­fly is a but­ter­fly, if you're a tod­dler or a child. They're okay to look at for five minutes or if one falls over dead and you can hold it in your hands for a while.

But you'd much rather squeal whilst a mar­moset mon­key rum­mages through your mother's hand­bag look­ing for any­thing resem­bling food or make vomit­ting noises when you see the col­our of the blue-tongued skink's tongue (a short-legged Australian liz­ard ideal for gar­dens with an infest­a­tion of snails).

So whilst I as an adult was mes­mer­ised by the incred­ible but­ter­flies, and would have loved to stand and watch them gorge on fruit (at vari­ous inter­vals, ripe fruit lies on wooden perches to attract the but­ter­flies, flown in as pupae every week from coun­tries such as Costa Rica, the Philippines, Malaysia and China), my tug­about was hav­ing none of it.

He wanted the action and action was what he got. After work­ing out that the sus­pen­ded wooden blocks float­ing between the vari­ous rooms was not a weapon of destruc­tion but a weight for the pul­ley on the swing door, he yanked me, some­what to my relief given that it was cooler there, into the spider room, past a num­ber of slum­ber­ing anacon­das (did I men­tion that they're also in glass cages?).

Any indi­gen­ous spiders, other than the baboon spider, which I have now learnt does not deserve its fear­some repu­ta­tion as its bite has little to no effect, were side­lined by the enorm­ous tarantu­las lying vir­tu­ally inact­ive in their respect­ive boxes. There are snakes here too, some of which were out of their cages for people to hold.

But on, this time past someone with a green tree iguana (they grow up to 2 metres in length, but this one was nigh on a metre) perched on his shoulder for a photo moment to a grind­ing halt when we sighted 'little koala bears, mommy!'.

Marmosets describe little furry guys that do indeed look a little like koala bears, but with none of the jet-lag. These little chat­ter­ing new world mon­keys from South America move like light­en­ing and enter­tain both them­selves and those around them.

The rep­tile room was as much fun, with vari­ous iguanas, bearded dragons and blue-tongued skinks, but it was a little hot to hang around in the gar­dens, no mat­ter how beau­ti­ful, for too long.

The out­door garden was lovely to sit in on a sunny after­noon and there is a large avi­ary with a col­lec­tion of ducks, chick­ens, goats, tor­toises and the like for chil­dren to inter­act with. And, if you could face the incred­ibly busy res­taur­ant and gift shop, then I believe light meals are on the menu.

Opening Times:
09H00 – 17H00, Monday to Sunday. Open all pub­lic hol­i­days except 25 December.

Entrancs Fees:
R35.00 per adult
R20.00 for chil­dren over 3
R90.00 per fam­ily (2 adults, 2 chil­dren)
R30.00 for pensioners/college stu­dents
Children under 3 enter free

Contact Details:
Butterfly World, Route 44, Klapmuts (near Stellenbosch and Paarl), Cape Winelands.
Telephone: +27 (0)21–875-5628

Photo Credits:
Photographs used on this page are all cour­tesy of and © Butterfly World.

For more ideas on what to do with kids in the Cape see "Things to Do with Kids in Cape Town".

Useful Links:
Cape Winelands Attractions
Cape Winelands Accommodation
Things to Do in Cape Winelands