Saturday, December 10, 2016

Day 6

Another long driving day but we did swing by a waterfall and stop back at the ice cream place for another epic cone (this one was even better), I had Raspberry Pomegranate Sorbet sandwiched between some of the creamiest and most pistachio-y Pistachio ice cream ever.  On the way back to Kayla's we stopped at a park called Tawharanui and went for a short hike.  While remarkably beautiful it was the birds we found that really set it apart.  New Zealand is interesting because there are no native mammals.  All of the niches normally filled by mammals are filled by birds (or were until mammals were introduced).  Some of these are very very cool.  We saw a pair of one of the rarest birds in existence as well as a pair of saddlebacks (my favorite), several New Zealand pigeons (dumb as hell but really pretty), and a ton of others whose names I can't remember right now.  Tonight I rest and tomorrow the solo adventures begin for real.

These are just a few pictures of cool stuff we saw when we stopped at places on our way back

 Cool waterfalls near Paihia

Kayla and Mike walking through the jungle with me (searching for birds)

We found 2 TakahÄ“, Mike says there are less than 100 left (and wikipedia says they were once thought extinct)

My favorite bird that we found: the Saddlaback.  They don't fly well but they are really good climbers and very fun to watch as they look for bugs to eat.

PS This was added after because I figured out how to make photo spheres viewable.

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