First day on the West Coast sure was packed to the brim! We started off our day having breakfast at the iconic ‘Maggie’s Kitchen’ where the owners, Alan and Maggie, made us feel at home with their warm personalities and tasty food. We then headed over to Crèche Du Bois Gentil, the Friendly Forest Kiwi Crèche where we would be spending the next 5 hours. Jo Halley, manager of this Crèche, was there to greet us at the predator proof fencing that surrounded the 13 hectare land.
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| Jo leading us into the Crèche through the predator proof fences |
The role of this Creche is to be a sanctuary for the Great Spotted Kiwi where hatched chicks will spend the first 6-8 months of their life protected from introduced mammalian predators such as stoats and rats. Health checks are done monthly for the chicks and we were able to see one today with a Kiwi named Najima. Najima, meaning star in Arabic, was named by the Muslim community from one of the Mosques that was attacked earlier this year. Jo and Ray, another employee who happens to live next door to the creche, quickly caught Najima and pulled her out gently by her feet where it is the least likely to injure her. In two shifts, everyone got a turn to marvel quietly at how cute a kiwi was in person.
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| Jo with baby Najima |
Half of the group strategizing how to move the bridge
Once finished at the sanctuary, we headed to Punakaiki Beach to see pancake rocks. Made of limestone, these rocks have layers giving them the appearance of the famous breakfast dish. Being there at high tide we also had the pleasure of seeing blowholes, which happens when waves crash and water is pushed vertically up through the rocks creating a wall of ocean spray.
We then went for a quick hike to Paparoa National Park which was a landscape straight out of Jurassic Park. Dramatic cliffs, gigantic tree ferns, and beautiful reflective waters gave us a prehistoric feel. Weka’s were also spotted at the end of our hike as well, which are a close relative to the kiwi we had seen just a few hours earlier.
Calm water reflections
Weka spotted
Being on the West Coast, we of course watched the sun set over the Tasman Sea and some of us even put a hand in the water to say we had been in this new body of water (to us at least). We hurried down the road before dusk in hopes we would be able to see the Westland Petrels come in for the nights. Being a pelagic bird, they rarely come on land but during this time of year they nest on the cliff sides during the nights. After sometime waiting, we began to see them slowly coming in and probably ended up seeing at least 100!
The little black dots are, in fact, Westland Petrels
The last event on our agenda for the day was to go into a cave and search for glow worms. With just the red lights emitted from two headlamps, all 14 of us crawled into the rock caverns in hopes to not hit our heads and see the glowing invertebrates. After ducking and slowly moving for about 10 minutes, we look up and see a number of the fluorescent creatures on the ceiling above us. Glow worms actually glow the same way that dinoflagellates in the ocean glow, by bioluminescence! They attract prey like moths and tourists with their glowing looks.
Shoutout to Lexie for this decent picture of the glowing worms :)
Safe to say that while today was action packed to the brim, it was full of new and thrilling experiences for everyone in the group.
Catch ya later, -Grace
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