New Zealand - North - Donnelly's Crossing

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Hi me again, very very very excited, we have just seen 3 Kiwi birds in their natural habitat. This is an amazing achievement, not only because we have seen them but because we did it on our own and being true thoroughbred townies this is certainly a miracle !!

Richard gave us a red torch and a white one, sent us off in the direction of Trounson Kauri Park, now bearing in mind, it's pitch black, we have to travel on a dirt track in the car, then try and find this park, it really wasn't looking good, (this is all new to us !!). Eventually we came upon it, now that was something, so we were pretty chuffed with ourselves so far, on go the torches, but they both kept going off, the red one had a loose connection as we found out and the White one was dying. Finding the entrance was a job and a half, but eventually found the boardwalk, so off we trott into the forest with our crappy torches, scarey as well, kept thinking someone would jump out on us. Well within 10 minutes we heard rustling sounds, we quickly put the red light on (Not the white one because they don't like it) and there he was, Mr Kiwi trotting around getting his food, then we saw a female one, they are bigger and another one. This was just brilliant, not many people see wild kiwi's, because they are endangered species. We would have been very happy just seeing one but three, well what a bonus. We drove back to the house all happy and excited and got lost, so had to put the Sat Nav on, Richard came out of the house when we pulled up and he was amazed as well, he said we were really lucky.

Earlier we went to the pub, we said we would meet them there as Stu was in the shower, they gave us directions as it was only down the road, ehhhhh down the road here, is not like our down the road, we got completely lost, didn't even know the name of the pub, so couldn't use Sat Nav, ended up on a worst dirt track than the one we travelled down on, turned around, I went into a holiday park asking for directions, got totally lost again and then found the pub by accident, in we go, all stresseyfied !! Angela and Richard looked at us amazed, I said, 'that wasn't down the road, that was a long journey and we got lost', they just laughed. Honestly we are completely out in the sticks, there is nothing around us, as much as it is lovely, Stu and I both said, what the heck would you do out here !!!

Sorry have no photos of Kiwi's, Google them if you don't know what they are.

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