Mt. Cook National Park

Cornelia meets Moa

We were able to find a  MacBook and a guidebook for New Zealand birds in a bookstore in Timaru in the morning so we were all set to head to Mt. Cook National Park.

We stopped for lunch at the touristy town of Lake Tekapo.  

Making lunch in our van's kitchen

Lake Tekapo doesn't really have much to offer except for a beautiful blue lake and a view of Mt. Cook (New Zealand's highest mountain).  Today though it was hidden by clouds.

Non-view of Mt. Cook

It does however have a statue of a moa, New Zealand's extinct Gian ostrich-like bird.  And a set of automated self-cleaning toilets that nobody could figure out.  Not even the Japanese tourists!  Actually a young German woman helped me out.  

High-tech toilets, lo-tech tourists

We also found this handsome guy, our first view of the endemic New Zealand scaup, a lifer.

Bird of the Day!

And well worth another photo:

We innocently arrived at the government campsite at 3 pm only to find it was fully booked.  So we quickly made a reservation at Glentanner commercial campground, 20 minutes back down the road.

Meanwhile we went for a short hike from Mt. Cook Village through silver beech forest.  These beeqches are not related to the European beeqches but they are related to trees in Chile and in many ways the New Zealand remind me of Chilean forests minus the bamboo.  We didn't see any new birds:  silvereye, NZ fantail, chaffinch and Eurasian blackbird.

When we drove back to Glentanner campground it was just packed.  People were waiting in line in the communal kitchen for a hotplate or a sink.  We wound up cooking back at our van Despite the cool weather. After dinner we walked down to Lake Pukaki where we saw a dunnock, New bird for this trip but one we've seen before in Europe.

Timaru

 

Timaru has a beautiful sand beach

We drove to Timaru where we'd read there was freedom camping at the harbour but they were now charging $20 a night.  

But we didn't care because right next to the car park was this:

Directions to the penguin viewing point

No fun allowed, New Zealand style:

Little penguins, also known as blue penguins, nest in among the rocks along this road.

Timaru has a beautiful beach

On the other side of the road is the Timaru container docks.

At dusk we followed the penguin trail to viewing area.  It started to rain, hard.  Nothing to see. When the volunteers arrived (their job is to protect the penguins and spot them for the tourists) they explained that the penguins are mounting now and do not eat; therefore they don't go to sea.  However they do co e out of their dens u Der cover of darkness.

The volunteers know where their nests are so they showed us where a pair were active in the dark, in the pouring rain.

Little Penguins are the smallest in the world, about 12 inches tall. Leo got some not very sharp shots.

They were adorable!

Lifer and Bird of the day!

Earlier we spotted another lifer next to the parking lot.  

The black-billed gull is endemic to New Zealand and distinguished from the similar and more abundant  silver gull

By its (duh) black bill.

Hinewai Reserve

 In the morning we drove up to the private Himewai Nature Reserve.

It was high up in the hills and you could see down to the ocean. If you had the time and energy you could hike all the way down and back up again.

We did a loop trail from the visitor centre down into the forest.  The woods were full with birdsong. We were greeted by the outgoing fantails and the songs of the bellbirds.

Connie stands on a nifty little bridge in among the tree ferns

Leo in among the giant ferns

Leo caught a photo of a chaffinch (European import).

And we saw our first tomtits, a New Zealand endemic and lifer for us,

Immature tomtit, best photo we got

The caretaker here is evidentally a bit of a character.  He made many informational signs with engraved lettering describing the native plants

But he also made similar signs scolding visitors for pulling up invasive foxgloves or 

breaking off fern fronds.

We made a short side excursion to see this small falls.

And eventually we reached the bottom of the loop where we crossed below this larger waterfall.

Then it was time for the long steep climb back up to the van.  Right after the falls we had to ascend a stairs which turned into a ladder.

Seriously, have these New Zealanders never heard of such a thing as a switchback?

Finally we got back to our van and headed south to the town of Timaru.

Akaroa and the Banks Peninsula

We headed south from Christchurch to Akeroa on the banks Peninsula.  We stopped at a reststop on Franklin Lake

 Where we saw black swans (introduced from Australia), great crested grebes and mallards.

We turned off the main highway onto narrow windy roads that looked down onto sheep pasture.  It was really beautiful and really stressful for our first day of driving on New Zealand roads.  The van is rather underpowered so we had a train of vehicles behind us.

Eventually we reached our destination, Akaroa harbour, and pulled into one of the last free parking spots where we would spend the night.  

We checked out the busy main street, walked the pier

And saw these birds:

White-faced heron

One of a number of Cormorant species

The very pretty silver gull with a very not-pretty hoarse seagull call

After supper we took the trail to Children's Bay (10 minutes, it said).

When we got there there was a loop trail up into the hills so we checked that out.  

We had great views back to the town from here

And the whole trail was very birdy.  We saw the New Zealand pigeon (lifer).

Bird of the Day!

We were commenting how noisy the cicadas were and Leo spotted one.

The fantails were very outgoing and flashed their tails at us.

We spotted this guy running around a field nowhere near a swamp.

Australasian swamphen

Eventually we got back down to Children's Bay only to find that the tide was in, cutting off our return. So we had to climb back up the hill and retrace our steps. Some 10 minute evening walk!

First Day in New Zealand

After a 17 hour day of flying we arrived in Christchurch at 9 am and picked up our Toyota Hiace van.  She's got a name, Caroline II, and she has 400,000 km on her.

We drove 3 minutes to the Woolworths for groceries and then another 5 to the Riverside Holiday Park where we set up.  We thought we'd fall asleep right away but we didn't sleep at all.  For one thing it's 28 degrees today, the NZers are surprised too, it was 13 degrees yesterday.  

Fantails and silvereyes were abundant among this road lined with what Leo thinks are Monterrey pines.

We went for a walk around the neighborhood and saw quite a few common New Zealand birds including a lifer for us:  New Zealand fantail.  We also refamiliarised ourselves with several Australian species:  Australian magpie, masked lapwing, silverwing.  And there's lots of introduced European birds:  song thrush, house sparrow, starling.

 

Chesterman Beach and Tofino

The following day we drove up to Chesterman Beach

Where we walked for awhile

then went for lunch at the very fancy Wickaninnish Inn.  

Entrance

With lots of local art.

The Driftwood Cafe in the lower level is casual and reasonably priced and has a view of the beach and ocean.

Afterwards we checked out the public areas in the upper floors.

Great views

Then we went down the beach

 to see the quirky architecturally designed vacation rental we stayed at on our previous trip seven years ago in January 2019.

2019

Alas it had been demolished and in its place was

A steel frame.

So we posed for a reunion shot.

RIP is for the house not us. We all survived the cold we all caught on our weekend.

Next we drove to Tofino.

The sun was out!  I realized it was the first time I'd ever seen the beautiful mountain scenery from Tofino harbour.  It had always been clouded in.

Posed for a parting shot.

The next morning we drove back to Victoria and stopped at Cathedral Grove for a walk around the giant trees.

They are even bigger than the last time we visited!