Real kiwi experience
Trip Start
Oct 01, 2008
1
44
82
Trip End
Dec 30, 2009
Otorohanga,
North Island,
New Zealand
Saturday, November 22, 2008
These are flightless creatures with no wings but a long beak that they use to root around for tasty morsels. They are normally nocturnal but the bird park (yes, we visited a bird park) has a big shed where they turn night into day and vice-versa letting us see the little critturs in action. I was surprised at how big they are: up to 2ft from beak to you know what. They walk with a jaunty motion, pecking as they go. As they can't fly, they make easy meat for non-native predators such as stoats and weasels and only survive in the wild in a few offshore islands.
In the afternoon, we drive 50km to the west coast and paddle in the Tasman Sea on a huge black sand beach outside Kawhia. It is virtually deserted when we get there at abut 1700hrs. The tide is high: when it is low, there are areas of hot sand due to volcanic steam vents. The town was one of the early sites of Maori habitation when they came here from Polynesia in the 14th century and is now a quiet fishing port.
We have lunch and dinner at the coolest joint in town, the Thirsty Weta (which happened to be virtually the only place in town open in the evening apart from Subway) and stay in the comfortable Palm Court Motel (sadly no orchestra). A weta is a sort of cave beetle, since you ask. The restaurant/bar was promoting a national NZ campaign to persuade men to grow moustaches this month in aid of men's health. I'm not sure how well it will go down in Sonning Common.
