A leisurly day on and around lake wakatipu.

After yesterday's excitement, today was a leisurely day to quietly enjoy the beauty of the town of Queenstown and its surroundings.  We fist went to a bird sanctuary just up the road from our  wonderful hotel ("the Dairy" - highly recommend it if you go to Queenstown), because - after more than 2 weeks in NZ, we still had not seen any live kiwis.  They are quite fascinating:  as we all know, they are flightless birds, but I did not know that that this has been the case for so long that their wings have basically disappeared - they have little stubs left, but that's it.  Also, they are the only birds whose nostrils are at the tip of their long beak. Considering they spend most of their time digging in the ground for food, their nostrils must get very plugged up!   The adults are actually quite tough and can fight back against cats, stotes (weasels), possums and other mammals that were introduced by human about 1000 years ago.  But the chicks are  helpless and take a long time to grow to full size.  So right now, in the wild, 95% of the chicks die before they reproduce.  There is a huge effort to raise them in captivity, and then release them - which has had some success.  They have an interesting way to raise "children":  the egg weights about 1lb, which is 20 to 25% of the weight of it's mother (think about a 30lb baby......).  Understandably, after laying the egg, the female wants nothing to do with it, and the male incubates it for 3 months (which is very long by bird standards) - after that, he too is just sick of it - but luckily, baby kiwis are born completely able to handle the world:  they have a full set of feathers, they know how to look for food, etc...  Unfortunately, they only know how to deal with a world without predators - thus the troubles they are in right now.  But things seem to be getting better, thanks to huge efforts throughout NZ.  I can't post any pictures of the kiwis, because they are nocturnal - so their house are kept very dim, and we were not allowed to use flashes - but we were really happy to see them, including one baby

 However, we got up close and personal with this creature:  the tuatara is a close relative of dinosaurs - you can tell by looking at it!  It is over 200 millions years old (not the particular one on this picture, the species), and just plain odd.  It has such a slow metabolism that you could  put it in the fridge for 6 months, and it would go dormant - if it were a gestating female, the gestation could go dormant too.  After 6 months, you could open the fridge, let it out, and it would be just fine....  They move very slowly, so again, got decimated when predators (rats in particular) were introduced.  They  only remain in the wild on islands.

 

We spent the rest of the day on and around lake Watatipu- fall is coming quickly to Queenstown, and we can see the colors of the trees change from day to day

 We took this old steam boat around the lake : it is 100 years old this year and still looking good!

 And it makes it possible to get really good views of the lake and the area,

 It is also just a beautiful sight in itself, with gorgeous wooden decks, and an open steam compression engine that you can visit (and where they still shovel coal).

 It was windy at the front of the boat....

 The light around here is so beautiful, once could just stay here and take it in forever......

 After our ride, we took a stroll to the botanical garden on the other side of the lake,

where I got to hug some trees.....  we all now how much I love to hug trees....  this one is a beautiful giant sequoia - not native to NZ, of course, but still so great that we had to stop to take a picture.  The botanical garden was a delightful surprise - we did not really know it was there, and stumble upon it, and it is very pretty and peaceful.  Also, it has some of the wild birds that we saw this  morning at the aviary - but in the wild. 

Including these wood pigeons.  These are the biggest pigeons you have ever seen!!!!!  I would guess 3-4 times the size of an average NYC pigeon -and prettier.  They are engendered - because the Maoris found them very tasty.  But, as we discovered, you can still find them around in the parc.





The most remarkable thing about Queenstown (other than then mountains that surround it - which are called the "remarkable range") is the light.  I hope the pictures give a hint of it - because I want to make sure we remember it.  So here is one more - taken at sunrise this morning.

Tomorrow, we go back to the North Island, to spend our last 2 days on an island near Auckland.