We packed up and left Busby Manor at 9am and headed to the Marina Café at Opua for breakfast. Quite a nice spot looking out over the marina. So many boats in this part of the world which is quite understandable when you consider how protested the waterways are. There is also a vehicular ferry from Opua to Russell for those who want to travel by car without taking a much longer route.
We took the long way to Whangārei, our destination for the night, heading for the coast through Sandy Bay, Woolleys Bay and Tutukaka before finishing up at Otuihau Whangārei Falls - a lovely walk along the cliff face and then down into the gorge at the base of the 26 metre-high waterfalls. Loved the humpy back bridge.
Next stop, Kiwi North to see some Kiwi. The Kiwi House is part of a larger museum complex of heritage buildings. We had a quick look at a natural history display but we were really there to see a kiwi - and we did (in his nocturnal house, well set up logs and plenty of undergrowth). the single Kiwi (there was another enclosure but we couldn't see the kiwi) was very active and was actually fed by his keeper (hiding the food in the enclosure) while we were there. The keeper also came out to have a chat. Kiwi's lay very large eggs nearly as big as the Kiwi itself. The chicks are kept at Kiwi House for two years before being released into the wild. At that age, they are better able to defend themselves from cats, stoats and ferrets.
At Kiwi House, they also had a display of a couple of rare New Zealand geckos - very cute.
Overnight tonight at Motel Six in Whangārei, after dinner down the road at Whang Thai.
I just love the Māori words. The pronunciation of Whangārei is Fuhng-uh-ray. Our Sat Nav was doing a pretty good job of the pronunciation but we didn't have a clue of what "she" was saying until we realised "whang" is pronounced "fuhng". Our indigenous names are nowhere near as complicated.
