The only new bird spotted in Auckland was the Blackbird, the kind with an orange bill, imported from Europe. Other birds seen in abundance were the Myna, House Sparrow and Starling.
Our Tucson friend Mary hooked us up with her friend Rachel. They worked together in San Francisco, and Rachel moved to Auckland six years ago. Rachel took us to dinner at a nice restaurant, along with two of her Kiwi friends.
As soon as we sat down, one of her friends demanded to know what is wrong with Americans. She wanted to know how Bush could get elected twice, and now we were considering this John McCain person. I told her it wasn’t our fault, and I had worked myself into a tizzy about the election for the past month, and didn’t want to think about it until Wednesday. She wanted us to know that the whole world is concerned about what is going on in the US. I said I was aware of that, and I’m sorry for the trouble our government has caused, but I really had nothing to do with it. After the requisite discussion of real estate and the stock market, we could finally move onto to more pleasant topics.
Saturday November 1 we took a ferry for the 80 minute ride from Auckland to an island wildlife refuge called Tiritiri Watangi.The first people to inhabit New Zealand, the Maori (pronounced Maw-ree) arrived only 700 years ago. Between the Maori, and the European settlers who came after them, and the non-native plants and animals these people introduced, by the twentieth century, this island had been stripped almost bare of trees and native wildlife.
In 1984 an ambitious reforestation project began. All non-native vegetation was removed, and a quarter million native trees have been planted. Every last cat, rat and opossum was also removed, and visitors to the island now have to bring their food and camping supplies in rat-proof containers. Dirty boots must be cleaned so no invasive seeds are brought to this pristine site.
I got 14 new life birds today: New Zealand Pigeon (huge, with a white chest and blue back), New Zealand Kingfisher, Bellbird, Tui, North Island Robin, Red Crowned Parakeet, Stitchbird, Takahe (flightless and very rare!), North Island Saddleback, Brown Quail, Pukeo, Little Blue Penguin and Variable Oystercatcher.
The Little Blue Penguin was seen very close up and personal in a man made nest of rocks and concrete near the shore. A plastic window is built into the top of the nest, and all we had to do was lift the lid to see the penguin. I would think that would get old in a hurry for the penguin.
We ate our lunch on a bench next to the board walk through the forest. The variety of beautiful birds calls was stunning. We just gazed around with happy eyes and delighted ears.
We had a huge treat on the ferry ride back to Auckland. The captain announced that orcas were swimming directly ahead of the boat. He killed the engine, and no one minded the delay. We easily found the whales, playing about a half mile ahead of us. They showed their black backs and fins as they rose out of the waves and dove back in. Eventually they were beside the ferry, a pod of six, a few hundred feet away. It was very exciting. The captain said he only sees them on the ferry route about three times a year. What an honor.
Sunday November 2, Apex Car Rental picked us up at our hostel and took us to get our car in downtown Auckland. We got a 2006 Corolla four door sedan with 60,779 km on it for US$30 per day, including the ferry ticket to get us to the South Island. We got an automatic transmission, because we figured we were going to have enough trouble driving on the left side of the road without having to work a manual transmission with our left hands, too.
For three days, we had been preparing for the challenge of driving on the left side of the street by attempting to be pedestrians without getting squished. We never really did get the hang of it. We could easily spot the tourists who were used to driving on the right. We look left, right, up, down, forward and backward before stepping off the kerb, because we really have no idea from which direction the cars may come at us.
I decided to be the first to have a go at Kiwi driving. I got onto a divided street and was immediately thwarted in my attempt to turn right. I pulled into a gas station, and as I was pulling out, I again realized the divided highway would prevent me from reaching my destination. Instead, I was on a freeway within minutes of taking the wheel. I was not ready for this. I was still figuring out the car. I quickly learned and repeatedly forgot that not only is the steering wheel on the right side of the car, but the turn signal is on the right side of the steering wheel, and up means left while down means right. Because the wind shield wiper control is on the left, I usually got the wipers going when I was trying to signal a turn or lane change. It’s frustrating, to say the least.
We headed toward the Coromandel Peninsula, where we were impressed by the sharp mountains and the huge fern trees. It looked like an environment where dinosaurs would feel at home.
We got to Whitianga (pronounced fit-ee-AN-ga) on the east side of the peninsula, and stayed at Turtle Cove, a nice hostel in a residential neighborhood away from town. We had a queen ensuite (private bath room) off the communal kitchen for NZ$66.
Whitianga is on a bay filled with sail boats. It sort of reminded me of a Central American town, with its harsh concrete block and metal buildings.
Monday November 2 we drove to Cathedral Cove and hiked to the beach. The Cathedral is a huge Gothic arch in the rock outcrop by the sandy beach. The ceiling of the cathedral is about 50 feet high, and you can walk through it.
New birds for the New Zealand list were Wild Turkey and Black Backed Gull. For the life list, I got California Quail, Paradise Shelduck, Yellowhammer, Red Billed Gull and Black Billed Gull. We have found the Red Billed to be a noisy bully who will not tolerate the presence of Black Bills, even though they look identical except for their bill and leg colors.
We then drove Route 309 across the peninsula to the west side, stopping to check out a small grove of Kauri trees. These old giants once covered the north island, but white men and their Maori predecessors almost completely wiped them out. They can live to be thousands of years old. The trees we saw were about 600 years old and about eight feet in diameter.
We spent the night at the wonderful Tui Lodge in Coromandel. We had a queen ensuite with a twin bed for NZ$75. The grounds here are green and lovely, and the bird song is a delight. The Lodge is named for a ubiquitous black bird, the Tui. About the size of a robin, he is black with some long iridescent feathers on his back and a couple of curling white feathers protruding from his chest like white bulbs. Some call him the Parson Bird because of this costume.
The town of Coromandel is pretty cute. The businesses are mostly along two blocks of one street, and the buildings are wood clapboard. Some of the side walk is covered like a porch.
Tuesday November 4 we drove down the west coast of Coromandel Peninsula. While the east coast has farms and beaches, the west coast has steep mountains rising from the Firth of Thames. We had a picnic lunch at Waimo Domain, where we saw Mallards and Black Swans floating in the salty water, and Song Thrushes hopping around in the grass.
In the town of Thames, we stopped at a bird hide to watch the birds on the shore. Life birds spotted here: South Island Pied Oystercatcher, Lesser Knot, Eastern Bar Tailed Godwit, Pied Stilt and White Faced Heron. The heron gets his feathers slimy eating all sorts of sea food, so he grooms his feathers with a dry powder pressed from his breast with his bill. He uses his bill to brush the powder on his feathers, and then combs the feathers with his toes.
New Zealand has twelve species of Shags, or Cormorants. We spot our first species, the Little Shag.
E7 is a famous female Bar Tailed Godwit that had a radio transmitter surgically implanted in her here in Thames. She set the record for the longest flight of a tagged bird. I don’t know if it’s still true, but the sign said Godwit migrations could be tracked on www.alaska.usgs.gov. In March one year, E7 flew 17,500 km from the Firth of Thames to China to Alaska, where she probably spent two months breeding. She then took a short cut and made the 11,500 km return trip, arriving back in Thames by September. We’ll try to keep her travels in mind if we are feeling overwhelmed by tourism.
Thames is a little nineteenth century mining town between the Firth and the mountains, with little clapboard houses with corrugated metal roofs. Very cute. We were disappointed that the little mineral museum is only open Wednesday to Sunday from 11 to 3.
Most of the North Island that we have seen has been logged and turned into pasture for sheep, goats, domestic deer, alpaca, horses and many varieties of cows. We have seen the regular black and white cows and the brown and white cows. We have seen a few of the tiger striped cows that can also be found in Globe and Sonoita, Arizona. Some cows look air brushed from their black legs and bellies up to their light brown backs. We saw a field of cows that were black in the front and back, with a wide white band around the middle. We call them barrel cows. Turns out, they are actually Belties. We saw several horses wearing rain coats, but no rain hats.
The way these cows stared at us reminded me of Edouard Manet's Dejeuner sur l'Herbe.
At first I was surprised at how many cows were packed into a small field, until I realized that I had gotten used to the starving cows of the desert, which each seem to need an acre to find enough sustenance. With all the rain here, the cows find plenty to eat and they don’t have to walk far to find it.
Steve asked some people for directions, and recognizing him as a Yank, they asked him who he voted for in the presidential election. After giving the correct answer, he got his directions.
