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Our final night in a New Zealand hostel! It wasn’t so bad, we had to tip toe around a little this morning to get ready but we were good to go for the last kiwi bus at 8.50am. My back is bloody sore today and our thighs are aching too. Need to try and keep moving and stretch a lot today on that bus, can’t imagine it’s going to be full.
The bus wasn’t a kiwi bus it was a random coach but with a kiwi experience driver and just as we expected the bus was quiet with about 12 of us on it and half getting off in Rotorua.
The weather was gorgeous but still a little chilly, after the drop offs in rotorua we got to visit the kiwi hatchery that we were going to visit last time we were here.
The hatchery is basically saving their native bird and trying to increase the population before realising them into the wild because if they’re a baby kiwi in the wild they have 5% chance of living but if they’re older and stronger and ‘stout proof’ they have 60-70% of surviving.
The kiwis all around the country are working so hard to get rid of the pests that are killing all their native flightless birds, even if it’s just roadkill. They’re actually told to not swerve when they see one and just keep driving to run it over, there’s 50 million of them throughout the country and they’re trying to become pest free of stoats and ferrets by 2050. I mean thats one hell of a commitment and a tough challenge but if they’re up for it!
The kiwi enclosures are dark so because the birds are nocturnal they’re awake when we are and then they make it light in the enclosures at night so people can see them. The enclosures though are pretty cool, they have weather climates in there with wind and rain and the soil is real with bugs in it, all the trees and shrubs are real too.
The rest of the day we literally drove so far and for so long with one toilet stop before we got to Auckland city centre at 3pm. A long ass day with lots of room on the bus for stretching (that I took full advantage of) and we had a ham and lettuce roll - yummy!!
We got the train over to Panmure before Amy to pick us up. We were staying with the lovely Coopers again out in Howick. They had a howick midnight festive street market tonight in the little village up the hill from their house, the market stalls were selling arts and crafts items and the bars and restaurants were all open with food stalls out front, dancers and bands and performances going on in the street and they turned the tree lights on for Christmas but the tree looks like a normal tree you would see in a park not a fur tree or christmas tree haha.
Had a lovely evening walking around and seeing the sites. Then we all went for a sit down Indian which was super good and welcomed by me and Ellie, we’ve been thinking about the curries ever since we left Sri Lanka!
Bloody freezing tonight though, I think probably because of the Baltic wind coming off cockle bay! Brrrrr!
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