Mega creatures take over the Hunter Valley Gardens

Children and their families will be able to live out their Jurassic Park dreams at the Hunter Valley Gardens this month.

Giant animatronic dinosaurs, spiders and snakes are taking over the site for the Mega Creatures installation.

The annual fixture invites people to roam through the gardens while getting up close and personal with dinosaurs.

Event manager Amanda Andrews says it’s perfect for everyone.

“Our whole garden transforms into a Jurassic Park style feature, complete with moving animatronic dinosaurs, insects, dragons and all kinds of things,” she said.

“The event is great for the whole family of all ages and we’ve got our rides – the Ferris wheel and teacup ride and our giant slide – so there really is something for everyone.”

Scattered throughout the gardens, Amanda suggests putting on your best walking shoes to go for a hunt around the Pokolbin location.

There’ll also be Easter Egg hunts, fossil digs and roaming dinos.

“During the school holidays there is entertainment on every day,” Amanda said.

“We have walking dinosaurs during week one and in week two we have our baby dinosaurs.

“So we have rangers walking around with baby dinosaur puppets where the kids can get quite close and interact with them.

“This year is also our biggest display ever, we’ve got 40 new creatures so it spreads out quite far throughout the gardens.

“It’s a really nice day, you can walk around and visit all the different spots.

“We have spider alley which has our large animatronic spiders, you can go into our dragon’s den which has our large dragons as well as Dino Land with our big T-rex.

“There is so much for everyone.”

Amanda expects 60,000 people to attend the day-night event.

When the sun starts to set, they light up the animals to create a “creepy, dark atmosphere” for the older demographic.