After a delicious breakfast we headed off to Rotorua today. The plan had been to do some adventure-type activities, but it was rainy so we altered the plan to fit the weather. First stop was
Rainbow Springs to see some native New Zealand plants and animals. The highlight was the tour of their kiwi house and rescue program. Because the survival rate of wild kiwi chicks is only 5%, the program takes eggs from the wild, raises the chicks to 6 months, and then releases them back to the wild. This insreases the survival rate to ~60%! Way better. Unfortunatly we weren't allowed to take pictures in the kiwi area, but you can see some on our previous kiwi house visit (and more kiwi facts, because I don't feel like writing them all out again).
As we were entering the park the most amazing thing happened. All sorts of birds and other wildlife just came and perched all over us! It was so magical:
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| Friendly animals! (haha) |
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| Looking at the rainbow trout |
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| Travis takes in the fern |
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| Cute parrot |
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| The Moa is a crazy animal! Too bad they are all gone :( |
First cool animal endemic to New Zealand: the
kea. Very curious parrots found on the south island, and are known to sometimes chew away the rubber around car doors. Kea parrots will sometimes attack sheep, which led them to be killed by farmers. The numbers dwindled so much that they are now protected.
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| Kea parrot |
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| They are very curious birds. Hope he doesn't eat my pack! (He didn't) |
Scott's favourite New Zealand animal, the
tuatara. They have some cool lineage which makes them special...too lazy to write about it so read it yourself :)
