On the outskirts of Te Anau, was the Wildlife Centre, which was one of only a handful of places where we could see the Takahe, another of New Zealand's rare flightless birds. The enclosure was enormous, and it was pretty tricky spotting them, especially as of the 5 there, 2 are very old and rarely move from their well chosen hiding places. To confuse matters further, the very similar looking Pukeko chooses to fly into their enclosure and strut around pretending to be endangered when it definitely is not.
The sign below captures some of their rather comic similarities.
Another interloper, a Canadian Goose was chowing down on food meant for someone much rarer.
This next one is the Kakariki, or Red-Crowned Parakeet. There was a sign apologising for him not looking his best due to the fact that he was moulting. These chaps enjoy foraging for seeds and insects on the forest floor, making them easy prey for introduced predators such as stoats and domestic cats. They are therefore in real trouble apart from in a few predator controlled areas.
OOooooooh the big fat NZ Wood Pigeon, or Kereru, looking very cosy with its plumped up coaty-peg. Apparently the Kereru are essential for the re-generation of New Zealand's native podocarp forests. They are the only bird capable of swallowing large forest fruits and distributing the seeds. This made me and the lady chuckle imagining them squeezing down huge mouthfuls without chewing, quite similar to me at meal times really, but it is actually quite a serious problem as without the Kereru, the podocarp forests don't regenerate quick enough to be self-sustaining.
This fella didn't like me poking the camera into his cage and poofed himself up to show it. I backed off without argument.
Round the other side of the Kereru cage we encountered our first Kaka, a forest dwelling parrot found on the north and south islands. It is distinguished from the more inquisitive and boisterous Kea by its pale grey crown. This beautiful specimen had a pretty good idea for an escape plan. He was going to take the cage to pieces one bolt at a time. He was really going for the nut, and was attempting to twist it the right way as well.
He eventually gave up though and squawked loudly from his perch before flapping down to annoy his partner who was totally absorbed in trying to extract some food from the middle of a yukka trunk.
This sturdy Antipodes Island Parakeet is one of only 50 or so that survive on the New Zealand mainland. The other 2000 of the species live exclusively on windswept Antarctic islands to the south-west of New Zealand. This along with the other birds on the mainland are managed in case the wild population is harmed by a catastrophe such as disease or fire.
'I've got my beady eye on you.'
After an hour or so of rare bird watching we hit the road, and before long encountered some utterly indecipherable grafitti on the road.
"Big" Chain Ring 53:11...Any ideas, anyone?
Clairy also spotted this tragically squashed harrier and thought the symmetry was beautiful (just to be on the safe side I hid the knives from her shortly afterwards).
Best roadside mailbox yet! Full marks for freaky chainsaw sculptures. Not sure if you can see it, but there was even a bit of tinsel in the eye sockets.
And behind it was this beautiful old wagon.
Our next stop was the Clifden suspension bridge (spelled slightly differently, but no less impressive for its time!)
It was a major undertaking and opened up this whole section of Southland for trade.
Love this picture Clary snapped of the workers camp. What a cheerful bunch.
Our next stop was Tuatapere which contained a number of our favourite kind of museum - the cheerfully mental looking ones. The first was the fairly straightforward Bushman's Museum in the Visitor Centre, which according to a certain rather cynical guide book had Southland's second largest collection of rusty saws.
But just check out how appropriate the display method is. Nice.
Tea bottle favoured by early bushmen. I reckon its just about reached Jamie strength now.
At the visitor centre the enthusiastic ladies talked us through the nearby privately administered Hump Ridge Walk, and it actually looked like a 3-dayer that we possibly could manage, not requiring any ice-climbing, river crossing or any other super human feats (they made it sound pretty easy - we should have guessed they might play down the difficulty a little). We therefore planned to return in a couple of days once we had got the necessary gear together.
Tuatapere's next exhibit was the Yesteryear Cafe, not only containing a vast array of beautiful old kitchenware, but also boasting back to back shacklock ovens (Kiwi rayburn-type things) in the centre of the room.
And to top that off we got a lovely cream tea there as well.
There was one other Museum of old junk which looked by far the most barking, but it was sadly closed and might we say somewhat optimistically looking for someone to buy the business. Ah well.
We headed on to Colac Bay where we planned to stay in the quality named Dustez Bak Pakas as it had a pub attached (always a good sign). After we'd eaten we thought we would grace the bar with our presence. Once there we met Harold, a supremely friendly and talkative local farmer who had been working at the abbatoir for some time, and the fabulously funny barmaid Faye, who between the two thoroughly entertained us all evening.
Here's Harold chatting to me. Like most of the clientèle he left his wellies outside along with his pickup and set of roaming farm dogs. He was very coherent though, even after 3, 2 litre jugs of beer. Clairy is in the background with Faye, playing a bizarre game where you had to throw a ring on a rope over a bull's nose on the wall.
Whilst we all got gently inebriated, the local volunteer fire service were checking and testing their equipment outside. One of the new members who had apparently joined on Faye's suggestion couldn't quite fit into any of the fireproof trousers or jackets. It was outrageously funny to the point where Faye actually rang the fire station to suggest that she could make some alterations herself.
Clairy snapped a piccy from inside the pub once the chap on the left had managed to get himself into the required clothing.
Dustez' had a nice little lounge with vast curved velour sofa's. Here I am showing just how big those New Zealand king size crunchies are (I can't even fit them both in my mouth!).
And here's the lady demonstrating the super toasty woodburner.
The day after we headed into Invercargill and I purchased myself a new pair off walking boots (possibly not ideal, the day before our first big walk), and we got all our supplies ready for the walk.
The following morning we headed off at 6:30, for our walk briefing back in Tuatepere . It wasn't raining and we were quietly confident that we were going to be ok for the weather.
Clairy snapped some lovely piccies of the southern coast.
The ridge you can see in the distance is the Hump Ridge that we would be up on top of by the end of the day (just about in one piece!).
1 comment:
Poor parrots, but the bar looked fun. Looking forward to hearing about the walk xx
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