Kurunda Butterfly sanctuary.

There is a special place in Kurunda which is worth a visit in itself and that is the Butterfly Sanctuary.

A place dedicated to nurturing all kinds of butterflies and actually the biggest of its kind in Australia.

The information booklet suggests that this is home to over 1500 tropical butterflies that are hand reared there. The fantastically blue Ulysses Butterfly and the Cairns Birdwing are local beauties but there are so many other types. 

You can see the eggs laid on the particular plants the butterflies choose, where the pupae are formed and where they hatch out. You can watch the caterpillars and hear about what they eat, some of them are particularly fussy eaters, and details about their life cycle. You see their beauty and appreciate the precariousness and the fragility of the eco systems that try to sustain them. That is why this sanctuary's work is so important and needs to be supported.

They were flying around everywhere and alighting on t shirts and shorts and brightly coloured shoes they were attracted to. They were very hard to photograph and it is not an exaggeration to say they were as flighty as their reputation suggests.