Day 63 - All Good Things...

Thursday, December 5th, 2013

The ducks that spend hunting season on Hiwi's property every year were flapping their wings against our door demanding breakfast this morning, despite the pounding rain. The deck and driveway area between our sleeping quarters and the entrance to the house are a continuous flurry of bird life. The many quail and ducks are regular guests but there are always other bird varieties around to sample the seed and pellets Hiwi provides. The front deck is the area to see native pukeko and the protected weka and kiwi. It's a large area of native bush where they live, but both the weka and pukeko have learned to emerge from the safety of the bush to enjoy treats Hiwi drops to them.

The Pukeko picks up an entire slice of bread with its huge feet, places it into its mouth and carries it away.

The Weka is rare south of here but we saw many killed on the roads in this part of NZ. Although we sometimes heard the kiwi screeching during the night, we never saw one here.

The heavy rain continued all night and we woke up dreading our drive south in this weather. Waiting out the rain was not an option - we'd already delayed the car rental return. So we said our final good-byes, got away fairly early and took it easy - visibility was very poor at times.

We had turned in the car and were in our Auckland hotel room by 2 PM. Now we had 28 hours to explore the city before our shuttle to the airport. 

We headed out to see what we could on foot. Our hotel was conveniently located near the quay and the shopping area of Queen Street. Once we were too exhausted to explore any further, it was time to find a good martini and dinner. How lucky we were to find both almost as soon as we decided what we wanted! The martinis were almost perfect and the lamb meal was scrumptious! Our last dinner in New Zealand was just as wonderful as our entire holiday here!