We continued Northward to Whangarei, the major metropolis of Northland (population: 25,000). It was useful to stop there and get groceries and stop at the local I site to make sure we knew weather forecasts and book a place to stay that evening (evidently, John did not find sleeping in the vehicle to be greatly comfortable.)
The night before at the flatwarming, a friend had mentioned that we should most definitely stop at the Kai Iwi Lakes. These are a lesser known gem, we were soon to discover. John and I stopped there to no drive for a while, relax in the sun, swim in the water and read books. Like most things in New Zealand, we were stunned by just how serene and beautiful the lakes were.
Here is Marian making her lunch:
Can you see us in the water?...
Here is the 2nd Kai Iwi lake:
And here we are at the last lake:
We continued westward towards the Kauri Forest, and arrived at our campsite with just enough time to make ourselves dinner before we ventured on a group night tour of the forest to hopefully spot some nocturnal creatures native to New Zealand. This may sound a bit strange, but actually, New Zealand has a lot of famous nightly critters, the most infamous being the nearly nationally symbolic Kiwi. Have we talked about Kiwis? I’m sure you want to know all about them. So here we go.
Back in the day, New Zealand was covered in birds. And big birds. One of them was the Moa, a bird that was even larger than an ostrich. Well, the Maoris arrived and ate them all a long time ago. But the kiwi is a distant relative of the Moa (or in the same bloodline, whatever, we will have to consult a zoologist or something), and is a furry little, non flying, long beaked, curious and defenseless creature that was able to survive very well in New Zealand up until the possum was introduced from Australia. John finds the kiwi altogether hilarious because of its unique defenselessness. It doesn’t have any wings, cannot fly, cannot protect itself until it gains a certain amount of weight, they are curious and walk TOWARDS sounds as opposed to exercising caution, and they produce a unique smell, which attracts dogs. All of these factors add up to making this bird a very hard one to keep around. So now there are a great number of kiwi protection projects all around the country, and this particular forest has been greatly successful at protecting the little bird.
Marian finds the kiwi to be quite cute, and simply because it is such a difficult creature to come across (nocturnal, not a lot of them) and because it is quite honestly one of the main symbols of New Zealand, you naturally grow this strange urge to want to see one in the wild – VERY BADLY! So we found out from the lady that ran the campground that we had about a 50% chance of seeing one in the wild on this particular tour. And we DID! Well, its little rump anyways. So, although it wasn’t the greatest view, we were quite pleased that we found one in the wild. We also found a fat little eel, (hmmm wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that our guide feeds it?), several large Kauri trees, glow worms, and a possum. And a Weta! These are called the “demon grasshoppers” of NZ…see if you can tell why in the pics.
Here is the Eel:
Here is the Kiwi...kind of...it was tough to take the pictures with the guide shifting the light all of the time...
Here are some out of focus Wetas:
And finally, we saw a little possum running around in the trees:
Marian was glad that the grasshoppers did not jump on her.
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