The jester house

The Jester House Cafe is a favourite of ours. It is located about a half hour drive from our house, in a very small town called Tasman, which is outside another small town, Motueka. It ranks very highly on tripadvisor's list of things to do in Tasman district. The word to describe the Jester House is 'whimsical' - that perfectly describes the place. One of the first things I noticed at Jester House was the booth with a sign reading "Did you forget your hat? Did you forget your tail?"




See, whimsical! But in the forest it is magic. Amazing wood-crafted animals to play on, a treehouse slide, a big concrete tiger: so much creativity and imagination. There was a chicken with chicks on our last trip.

Probably, a better overview than these photos is this video (especially the last few seconds).







And finally there are the eels. The eels are 'tame' which means they are used to being fed. You buy the eel food (ground-up chicken) for $5 and feed it to the eels on a stick. Shawn fed the eels and the kids were a bit scared of them, but interacting with the eels was a strangely magical and calming. I was expect something like rabid snakes fighting each other to bite off Shawn's hand, but the eels gave me the feeling they were ancient and sacred. Coming up onto the land they where slow and clumsy, we were willing them on to find the food and feeling bad for dropping it. Some were huge, reportedly >40 years old. When we asked Nico how he liked the eels Nico said 'they tied to eat Daddy's shoes' - it was true, they were getting pretty close!