Under the weather

Thursday, April 28, 2011
Okarito, South Island, New Zealand
The only time we saw snow beside the road in New Zealand was east of Te Anau (again in Tasmania in July). Temperatures through our seven weeks were usually in the teens in the afternoon and single digits at night, though sometimes it was a bit warmer. There were a couple of nights of frost along the way. As the season advanced we moved north, so temperatures stayed about the same. Moving to Australia (southern half) in June and July, still not much change, just a little warmer in the centre, and noticeably colder in Tasmania at the end. How much cold is tolerable is a matter of personal preference, of course, but for me the main advantage of visiting in the summer is not the extra warmth, but the much longer daylight. The downside in the summer is more tourists, but New Zealand feels spacious at the worst of times.

The Barnyard BBH a few kilometres from Te Anau was a good place to stay, one of many farms where deer are raised . One of our best walks was a bit of the Kepler Track, from Rainbow reach to Shallow Bay, apparently one of the places where LOTR (I didn't know either ... Lord of the Rings) was filmed. LOTR seems to be a big part of tourism in NZ, though that was not the reason why I liked the track.

We didn't stay long in Queenstown, the only place in the country (it was school break as well) that had too many tourists for my liking. We did have a lovely walk around Moke Lake, though. Wanaka was better, some nice walks there, also Puzzling World is worth a visit. On the drive to the coast, we picked up a female hitch-hiker who turned out to be a teacher from the area. We made several stops that day for short walks to waterfall lookout points, before arriving at Fox Glacier. The next day we did a half-day glacier walk, $100 each. In the afternoon we circumambulated another beautiful little lake, Lake Matheson, then spent two nights at Okarito, a very small place about 10 km off the highway, right on the coast .

Next day we passed through Hokitika, home of the National Kiwi Centre. Frances was keen to see a kiwi, and what better place than the National Kiwi Centre? Of course the kiwi is a nocturnal bird, so their enclosure was kept in low light, but our eyes adjusted and we peered eagerly. We were the only visitors. After about 20 minutes it was time for the eel feeding. These are amazing creatures as well, but not what we had paid our $17 for. At this point the keeper informed us that one of the kiwis was new and rather shy, and the other one was suffering from constipation. When I am constipated (which is rare) I feel that a good walk might be just the thing, but evidently this kiwi did not share my point of view.

The keeper said that the kiwi normally comes out of its shelter every 15 minutes or so, but again we waited longer than that without success. The keeper took pity on us, opened the kiwi's box, bundled it out and set it down. It was not a happy bird. Because of the low light we couldn't see it very well, but we heard it hissing. It immediately went back into the box. She did it one more time, with the same result. There are places where you can be guided to see kiwi in the wild, although it's not guaranteed of course. This may not be the best place to see a captive kiwi. Before paying your $17, I would at least ask how the kiwi is feeling today.

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