Tramping Through the Woods to a Kiwi Bird, An Afternoon at Little Bay, Re-Inking my Tattoo

Nothing exciting happened yesterday except that I finished the Hobbit. What a great book! And a relatively quick read - I don't remember it being so.

Anyways, onto today. So far, and it's not even 6pm, Alanna and I have had the most amazing of days! We left the cafe at 7:30 this morning and set out for Port Charles where we went on a bush walk in search of a wild Kiwi Bird, and were successful at finding one. We got a ride with our across the street neighbor, Natalie, who works at the local i-Site (information center). She is originally from LA and has lived in NZ for 5 years now. Her friend Ruth also joined us on the our journey.

The road up to Port Charles was a journey in itself. It is a very windy and hilly gravel road. In total the drive was almost 1 hour and both Alanna and I spent the last 30 minutes trying not to vomit. It was such a crazy drive, I'm so happy I didn't have the car and had to be in charge. The roads was only barely 2 cars wide and we always managed to come upon oncoming traffic on a blind corner. Yikes!

Anyways, once we got to the reserve, we got down to business pretty quickly. This was also when I noticed my camera wasn't charged. I had made all efforts to charge it before leaving but something must've not worked - thank got Alanna had hers! We left for the bush by about 9:30, after washing our shoes to prevent the spread of Kauri diseases, and then headed into the bush. Here's a video of us shortly into our hike. We hiked for about 1.5 hours and then came to a resting point. We were tracking a specific Kiwi bird that had a transmitter on it. It has had a transmitter for I think like 10 years but I'm not sure if they're ever attempted to catch it before today. We were on a mission to catch the bird, check it's health, remove the transmitter, and then re-release the bird.

After the first 1.5 hours of hiking, the guides left our group of 16, and went off to see if they could actually find the bird's exact location before brining us all further into the bush. They did find the bird and one of the guides, Tommy, stayed next to the bird's burrow, while Diane came back to get the group. We had a bit of a rough hike getting to the bird but once there we got to see it, and Alanna got to hold it. Here's a video of the female Kiwi bird we tracked.

After we spent some time checking the bird's health (while I recorded the measurements and observations) we headed back to the road. We followed a stout line, a line where they try to trap/kill stouts (a ferret-like animal), so the track was a bit easier. Emphasis on the "bit" because it was hard trek back, but faster. We finally made it back to the road about 2:30 pm, so in the end we spent 5 hours in the bush. No injuries to speak of - from anyone in the group - and thankfully no wasp nests or razor sharp vines which we were on the look out for all day. We did however, end up on our bums more than once as there were a few very steep parts of the track - too steep to hike - that we had to slide down to avoid an accident from happening.

Here are some photos from our hike:

Me, ready to head out.

Diane, our guide, trying to get a read on the transmitter from the Kiwi.

Alanna and I. Natalie is photo bombing us, in the middle, and Ruth can be seen off my left shoulder.

Me holding pig poop. A young girl in our group had said it was a spider's nest. I wasn't keen on holding it but the woman in front of me made me take it. After I grabbed it I said that is for sure not a spider's nest. Later, Tommy, our guide, confirmed it was pig poop. Yuck!

Tommy, our guide, holding a cicada borrowed in the ground.

The cicada. Sorry the photo isn't super clear.

Our Mauri guide, Tommy.

The hill we hiked down. You can't see it all that well but it was pretty big.

Diane with the Kiwi.

Look at how cute it is!!

Measuring it's beak. 130.3 mm. Most bird's beaks are measured from the tip to the nostrils, which are up towards it's eyes. On the Kiwi, however, the nostrils are at the tip of the beak (so they can smell worms and suck when they stick their beak in the dirt) so the beak is just measured up to when it meets the face.

Me scribing all this important information down.

Weighing the Kiwi. 2.1 kg.

Alanna holding the Kiwi.

Close up of the head. That brown mark on the side of it's head is it's ear. Can you see the eye, that is mostly closed, just in front of the ear?

Look at those feet/claws!

After the hike we drove a different, but just as windy and hilly, road back toward Coromandel town. We stopped at a beautiful beach, Little Bay, on the way. Based on both the view and the quality of the beach homes, I would say this is where the rich and famous vacation. Some of the homes have helicopter pads for quicker in/out. It sounds nice too to be able to avoid the wicked roads the lead to this small bay/community. Here I am at the beach:

When we got back to the cafe I went and got me tattoo redone. The ink on two of the dots didn't stay well so James redid it. Hopefully this time it will take.

And this just in: tomorrow morning I will be going out on the mussel barge. This has been many weeks in the making but apparently the weather will be okay tomorrow so we'll be able to get out on the water and see what this mussel business is all about. I am getting picked up at 4:15 so it'll be an early morning, but well worth it I'm sure! With that I have to get to bed. Talk to y'all soon.

Best!