Rotorua

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Our bus to Rotorua is at 10:40 am so we get up, have breakfast and the lady at the motel takes us to the bus station. We arrive in Rotorua at the Information Center and I go in to see about a shuttle to the Kiwi Encounter. While we were in Taupo I picked up a brochure and we decided this would be the last time we would be able to see a kiwi. I get the information on the shuttle and we walk about six blocks to our motel. Rotorua is a natural thermal area much like Yellowstone Park and our motel has two small mineral pools. After the Tongariro Crossing we are pretty sore so we think we may get in them later. We walk back into the city and have lunch at the Pig and Whistle Pub. We then go back to the Information Center to catch the shuttle to the Kiwi Encounter.
The Kiwi Encounter is a partnership between the Bank of New Zealand and the Department of Conservation to work on reversing the decline of the kiwi population. Half of the kiwi population is lost to introduced predators every ten years. Since kiwis are flightless, most of them are killed while they are very young and unable to defend themselves so the Kiwi Encounter takes eggs from the wild, incubates them and reintroduces them to the wild. It is a small program but every little bit helps. We see a one-day old baby kiwi in the incubation area and see older kiwis in the nocturnal room. The room is pretty dark and we are not allowed to take photos as it stresses the kiwis. But we are lucky today, as the handlers need to give one of the older kiwis some medicine so they take it out of its burrow and we are allowed to photograph it. Finally, we have seen that kiwis really do exist!
We go back to our motel and sit in one of the mineral pools for a while. It seems to help our sore muscles. We then go out and pick up some Chinese take-away to bring back to eat for dinner.

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