Issue 37

Kiwi's and Kauri Trees

During our trip, we were able to horseback ride on the beach, view a marine sanctuary from a glass bottom boat, see a massive gannet colony with all their young, and watched a sheepdog show. (All these pictures were lost, but hopefully they are on a back-up of the computer. I will post them when we find them.) We spent 5 days between the likes of Goat Island and Sheep World and two nights at Whatoro near the Giant Kauri tree forests. We saw the giant Kauri Trees (up to 45 feet in circumference and 2000 years old) that were truly awesome in size. A highlight of the trip was a guided night walk through the Kauri forest. Kiwi are nocturnal and endangered and very few people have the chance to see them in the wild. Steve took the older kids on the night walk and they were lucky enough to see a real kiwi! For a lifelong birder like Steve it was a true miracle. I stayed back at the caravan with the little girls and we had our own wildlife adventure. A weka (a cricket like bug about the size of a mouse) invited himself into our small trailer and jumped all around until I could shew him out! Yikes!