Rest day in Franz Josef
Probably shouldn't have taken a day off today; there's serious rain on Monday and I'm using up my last spare day then. So after this I'll need to ride, rain or shine. I also hope the weather forecast is accurate, it'd be annoying to avoid cycling on the Monday only for things to change, and the worst of it to arrive the next day...
Today I went out and did a few things while the weather is good.
Visited the Wildlife Centre, which has a really great Kiwi enclosure. The guide had a red torch, presumably the Kiwi can't see that wavelength - they didn't seem to notice the light when it was on them. It meant we could see them clearly, and up close, as they went stomping around. There were small bowls of food set out for them, but their instinct to forage meant they'd routinely stop and stick their beak into the ground, looking for grubs. Even though there were none, since this was a fully artificial indoor environment.
They must have been able to smell and hear us but didn't seem to mind.
Photos weren't allowed, sadly.
I also went kayaking. This was a 3hr trip on Lake Mapourika. A full group of eight people; we'd all kayaked before so we made good time. We crossed the lake, watched Tui feeding on flax flowers. Watched a rogue duckling try to catch up to its parents. On the way back we saw a White heron (kōtuku), which is quite rare; it got hunted nearly to extinction since its feathers were valuable.
It's only rare in New Zealand - it's common elsewhere in Australia and Asia. In NZ it has only one breeding ground, which seems like a poor choice. It needs shallow water for feeding so if their favoured lagoon is blocked it's a bad year. I'm going to suggest that humans can't be held fully responsible for their population decline...
I didn't want to risk my cellphone on a kayak so no photos from that trip either.
One other problem was that the hostel I was staying at yesterday couldn't extend my stay. I'd booked Saturday night in advance, but thought I'd be able to add Sunday night to it once I'd arrived and checked the place out. Not so, they were full! Saturday night could be booked 24hr in advance, but Sunday could not. I guess it's just the chaotic waves of visitors washing around the country. It's still nearly two weeks to Christmas, so I'm unhappily surprised it's this bad already...
I found another room for slightly more, on a big discount. I'm not convinced that it's worth the pre-discounted rate, but it was a fine place to get cleaned up after kayaking and it's got everything I need. Could do with a few more places to hang up my cycling gear, and I think I'll be eating breakfast out of a teacup, but we make do.
