Journal #19: Wellington
Date: 3/20/16
Cover Photo: “Enjoy the Ride”
Sheep Spotted: 0
“The more you weigh, the harder you are to kidnap. So eat lots of cake.”- Slogan on bakery in Wellington, NZ
I did the Wellington tourist marathon today- Sunrise on the docks (today’s photo), Cable car, Botanical Gardens, and the Bird Sanctuary (‘Zealandia’). All things considered, this has been my longest hiking/walking day in New Zealand logging roughly 17 miles (according to Mapmyrun) over the course of about 10 hours!
There’s not a lot to see in the Botanical Gardens (but it’s free- so I guess I can’t complain) but Zealandia is awesome. Zealandia is a massive bird sanctuary created to restore the native birds of New Zealand. Evidently, New Zealand was uninhabited by humans for a significantly longer time than most countries, and thus developed a very vibrant ecosystem of birds, plants, and other animals (and obviously double rainbows, rivers filled with chocolate, and children with gumdrop smiles).
When the first humans arrived (Polynesians, now Maori), they brought rats, possums, and other predators that began killing a lot of the birds in the area- including the flightless Kiwi (also of note: they have a great video they play in the lobby of a bunch of Maori beating an Ostrich to death with sticks).
In practice, the sanctuary is basically a medium security prison for birds: Massive walls surround all sides, the ground is covered in traps, and they pipe in fake bird sounds to keep the birds from migrating too far. They are also filming a Netflix series there called “Bird is the New Black” (just kidding).
Due to it being natural, it is extremely difficult to capture good photographs of the birds (they blend into their environment quite well and the author of this blog has no idea how to properly photograph birds), but I did get this photo of a Tuatara, which are so endangered that they use colorful beads to track each individual lizard:
Unfortunately I did not get a photo of a Kiwi- evidently they are nocturnal and quite difficult to see. I may end up having to go to a zoo in Auckland in order to see one ☹
Tomorrow is sadly my last day in Wellington- I plan on going out with a bang before heading North to Rotorua!
-MB
