Goodbye (for now) New Zealand

March 14, 2014 
Happy Birthday Tasha

We awoke on March 14 with heavy hearts, knowing we would be leaving New Zealand.  Roger and Carol were treated with a beautiful sunrise over Auckland Harbor.

These will be some of our memories of New Zealand that we have not written about yet.  Carol could watch Pukekos all day.  

While commonplace on the North Island, they are beautiful with black, blue and purple coloration and bright red-orange beaks.   When threatened, they will often walk away from danger rather than fly. When they fly, take-offs and landings are clumsy, and short flight distances are preferred.  Their legs kind of drag behind, as if the birds have forgotten they even have them.  They have long, thin feet and those of the chicks are gigantic compared to their total size.  

And then there were the beaches.  Opito Bay on the eastern shore of Coromandel Peninsula was the best.  Thank you Gerry, our Auckland host, for the recommendation.  It was the first time in 25 years that Roger and Carol hung out on the beach for day.  We napped, walked, waded in the water, and took in the beauty of our surroundings.  There were about as many people on the beach as you see in the photo above.  That we then had Luke's wood fired pizza followed by a double scoop of ice cream each didn't exactly ruin the day.  It was not the last time in NZ we hung out on a beach and it was our last week there already.  We tried to make up for lost time.  

Of course, there were more ferns than revealed in that blog post, but enough is enough with the fern fixation.  

 The people of New Zealand are friendly, welcoming and warm.   We stopped at countless I-Sites (information offices often staffed by volunteers from the local community) and DOC offices (Department of Conservation) where everyone was helpful.  They suggested everything from routes to wire bridges to letting us know what the weather would be like to what activities were best in the current conditions.   They helped us find lodging near Tutukaka, where we were going snorkeling the next day, when there was a regional farming event in town and we could not find a place to stay on our own...they made lots of phone calls that day, and not just for us.  Folks in restaurants took the time to patiently explain various species of fish that we had never eaten previously.  And then there was the constant surprise of how to get cooking surfaces in communal kitchen to work.  Carol never knew there were so many ways to turn on a stove - or to operate a shower for that matter.  

And every kiwi we spoke to put up with neither of us being able to pronounce any names, be they of birds, flowers, cities, lakes, rivers, animals of every sort, or landmarks.  That has been embarrassing.  




Carol sat in a car or camper van with an atlas on her lap telling Roger about where he was driving.  There were so many geographic features to point out and to describe.   Although she still doesn't know left from right and although Roger could rarely take his eyes off the road to see what they were passing, we made it through 2 months of travel, including some bike time.  We drove past many sights that are on our list for a return visit.  We knew we had to come back before the first week passed.  And, next visit we will spend more time at each stop along with more rest days.  It is hard work to sightsee nearly every day for two months.  We are pooped.

Our last day in Auckland and New Zealand, we took a ferry ride through the harbor and out to Tiritiri, a wildlife reserve.  The kiwis have a tough time creating reserves for native birds and plants, because there were no land mammals in NZ prior to their introduction by Europeans in the 1800s.  The animals introduced were rats, possums, and stoats primarily.  These mammals have decimated forests and killed off entire species of birds.  To create a predator free environment takes years of trapping the culprits and then installing a predator barrier.  It has been done successfully in a number of locations, islands being the easiest for obvious reasons.  However, once predator free,  those visiting the area have to make sure they do not reintroduce the villains.  No open bags are allowed to be brought onto the island.  All shoes are wiped and sprayed to prevent the spread of disease to plant and animal life alike.  The number of visitors is often limited as well.  

Here is some of what we saw on at Tiritiri:  

This is a Takahe, related to the pukeko.  these folks are plump and have more colorful plumage.  Their beaks are also proportionally shorter, as are their legs and feet.  Remember the cute pukeko chicks with the huge feet?  The takake chicks aren't very cute.  

The birds were thought to be extinct after 1898 when four were taken by hunters.  However, they were found in 1948 near Lake Te Anau, in Fijordland.  Through careful planning, there are now about 280 of these birds living mostly in predator free reserves, that is 280 TOTAL, the number of this species remaining.

Tui - Their distinctive call is the first we both could recognize.

North Island Robin

Saddleback - Their distinctive markings make them easily recognizable.

Stitchback - We had heard them for 2 months, but this was our first sighting.

The evening before we left, we had a lovely dinner with Jeannette and Gerry, our hosts.  It was relaxing and we chatted about all kinds of things, as usual when we all sat down together.  We include them as friends and hope they feel the same. 

Great hosts, amazing location.  Standing on the deck with Auckland Harbor in the background around sunset.