My 2014 Adventure: Travels to Singapore, Australia & New Zealand: Friday, May 30, 2014

In Wellington we spent the morning at Zealandia, a birdlife park right in the city. The founders reclaimed a valley and enclosed it with special fences to keep pests (possums, stoats, rabbits, etc) from climbing over or burrowing under. It was nice that the park was very quiet that day, with not many other patrons around. We were able to see many bird species including takahe, hihi, tui, saddleback, kaka, bellbird, kakariki, north island robin, fantail, and pateke (duck), as well as the Wellington green gecko and tree weta (giant insect). We were also able to talk with a researcher who was training north island robins to store mealworms by hiding the worms in a hollow log with a leather flap. We stood for 15 minutes watching the robin approach us to reveal the worm under the flap and seize it. He seemed to have a eat-one-hide-one system in place. We had lunch in the van in the Zealandia parking lot, took a quick walk through their exhibition, then drove over to the Te Papa Museum for Paul to experience. Since I’d already been there, I directed us through a highlights tour.

It was getting late so we jumped in the van and drove as far north as we could manage. We ended up stopping in this small town by the ocean called Waitarere Beach. We parked right beside the ocean for the night. After dinner we emerged from the van to use the restroom before bed; there was an orange tabby cat waiting outside our van. It turns out he hung around that place all night and would escort us to and from the bathroom. Even when Paul went to the restroom in the morning, the cat was waiting for him outside the bathroom door, and walked with him back to the van. He totally reminded me of that cat from the 90s TV show "Early Edition," where the guy gets tomorrow's paper and spends his days saving lives...the important thing though, is that it's the cat who delivers the newspaper.