Sunday 13 March – Back to North Island

Well this is the first time I have ever spent a night alone in a 5 bed dorm! It really must be drawing near to the end of the season but strange that every hostel was booked out for Thursday and Friday in Nelson. I noticed that 2 other dorms were empty as well. The Fat Cod is a good hostel; very helpful staff and very quiet once the last train went through at about 7, and the tv upstairs was switched off – sounded like Starwars!

One of the changes I notice about the hostels over the last 5 years – they no longer have computer areas because everyone has their own device and every hostel has good wifi and supply of power sockets. I remember rows of young people sitting at the computer areas in the evening catching up with home and friends. Now they are playing pool, chatting to each other or watching tv together.

I plan to get breakfast at the ferry terminal across the road so can lie in a bit as it’s so quiet. The ferry is not until 10.

Beautiful crossing on a gorgeous day so I won’t post another bunch of photos except leaving Picton through Queen Charlotte Sound and arriving back in Wellington.

However, I got chatting to Sharron, who sat beside me in the front seat of the ferry by the bow viewing deck. She was actually a lone person in one of the other 5 bed dorms in the Fat Cod! We were so like-minded that by the end of the crossing… some 4 hours later, we were firm friends, swapping contact details and vowing to keep in touch. She was originally from Ohakuni, brought up under the guardianship of Mount Ruapehu and now living in Perth.

It was great to see Gilly’s familiar face at the terminal in Wellington and we headed back to Bracken Villas for a quick cuppa before a tiki tour along the coast to Eastbourne (of all places). We tried to find a postcard to send to my Dad as I had childhood memories of Eastbourne UK where my grandfather had lived. No postcards as by this time most shops were closed so photos will have to suffice!

There was even a pier where I chatted briefly to a dad who was fishing with his two small children.

It was one of those lovely evenings where the sun was still warm before setting and there was a light breeze so we wandered along the beach a bit picking up Paua shells and me walking in the waves of course!

As dusk was falling, we left Eastbourne for my next magical mystery tour, Zealandia! This was a night tour round the reserve in search of Kiwis. There were just ten of us with guides, armed with audio gear so that the guide could speak to us quietly and infrared torches. It was so exciting walking through the silent bush listening for rustles. Occasionally you could hear a Morepork Owl asking for more pork! And we could hear the baby NZ pied cormorants twittering for food in their nesting site down by the lake. Along the winding path in the dark, the guides shone their bright infrareds on tuatara a type of quite large lizard-like reptile. We saw a pair of Takahe feeding, then a Kaka, a large green parrot, many cicadas, now sleeping and easily handled after an exhausting day making that very loud noise that giant crickets make. I was delighted to see a Ruru, a variety of NZ owl, peering down at us from a branch just above the pathway, a very rare occurrence apparently. We continued to shine our torches into the undergrowth while listening for kiwi calls but it was very quiet tonight. We followed a circuitous route for a couple of hours which took us across a dam dividing two lakes. En route we saw a little frog and an eel and some giant insects which could bite us! Finally one of our group whistled, the alert for a sighting, and there sure enough, with all torches pointing to the spot, we watched a kiwi happily prodding away with his long beak in the leafy undergrowth. He was not at all deterred by us staring at him in awe and even walked past my feet across the path and up into the undergrowth on the other side. I googled this photo but he looked just like this. So wonderful to see a kiwi in the wild. We returned at about 10 after seeing a few giant spiders on the way back…. all in all a very exciting night safari!