Friday 16 January

The plan is to go north to the Northlands and the Bay of Islands. We had time to go East out to Gisborne as we had planned to meet old Somerset friends in Tauranga on Monday.

We made what was intended to be just a brief coffee stop en route at a coffee shop/widlife centre. The Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre is based around 1,000 acres of land/forest and has an area where one can see many of the birds and reptiles close up.

We saw twoTuatara—— a male and a female

they are fed one locust each every three days and we happened to be there for the feeding.Their metabolism is so slow that one locust is sufficient!

In the kiwi house there was a white kiwi——this is not an albino but is white with normal coloured eyes and it can pass on the genes for further white kiwis; rather like a ginga gene! They are only active at night so they live in captivity with reversed day and night. No flash photography is allowed so picture taking was difficult and it was impossible to photograph her brown mate.

A Kaka was in residence

as was a Rifleman feeding her young, the smallest bird in New Zealand

all this in very natural surroundings

and then on to a freedom camp site at Lake Tutira 

where the black swans paid us a visit before returning in orderly fashion to the lake

and a kingfisher came to sit on a branch

a very peaceful night