March 31: Waitomo

Previously: March 30

We started the day with e-mail and blogging, then after our hostess Stephanie arrived and had time to get her day in order, we asked her advice on a few things. First, we wanted advice for a good breakfast place. Second, we wanted advice on the best cave exploration options. There don't seem to be any self-guided options, so it's necessary to work with local tour companies.

For breakfast, she recommended that we try the “O” café in Otorohanga. That’s about 15 minutes away by car. (You may have noted that everything is about 15 minutes away from our hostel. Shoshanna chose well.) "O" turned out to be a pleasant place with good coffee and really good food. Shoshanna opted for the “big stack”, which was based on a thick slab of mushroom with a poached egg on top, with layers of manuka-smoked bacon, roasted kumara (basically a sweet potato), and roasted potatoes. I went for the “avocado smash”, which was similar in structure, but with a sweet potato/potato croquette in the middle and a thick layer of smashed avocado. Both excellent.

For caving, Stephanie recommended the “Spellbound” tour company for the "dry" part of the day (a hike through glow-worm caves) and Waitomo Adventures for the wet part (riding inner tubes through a semi-flooded cave system). She liked both better than the competition because they were locally owned and had a better attitude towards their staff. When we checked the brochures and agreed with her choices, she booked both tours for us for tomorrow, so we’ll do the dry caves in the morning, have time off for lunch, then change into swimming gear and do the inner tubes. We’ll let you know tomorrow how everything turned out.

After breakfast, we continued about 5 minutes down the road to a localkiwi sanctuary, which is a zoo for rescue birds and also involved in the local captive breeding program. In addition to wandering around on our own, we sat in on some talks given by the zookeepers, who introduced us to some of the star residents of the zoo. First, we spent time with the flightless kea and flying kaka parrots, which are unique to New Zealand. The keas are upland birds about the size of a hawk, and a bit creepy, as they somehow learned that the sheep newly arrived on their shores have rich deposits of fat around their waist, and that it was a great food source for birds living in cold and nutrient-poor environments. So they became "fat vampires"! The kakas are smaller, about the size of two small fists, are ferociously smart, and are very acrobatic. They whip around their cage like monkeys using both feet and their beak, and when their mouth is full with a choice tidbit, like a walnut in its shell, they use their chin to grip branches. Their jaws are powerful enough and their beaks nimble enough that they can crack open walnuts and get at the meat. In the wild, they apparently love playing with cars, repositioning the outside mirrors and any antennas and (if unopposed) entering the car in search of snacks.

We also participated in feeding of the kakariki red-capped parakeets, which are about the size of a small pigeon, green-coated with a red cap, and very cute and reasonably fearless. The keeper gave each of us a handful of seeds, and we held out our hands so the parakeets could land and eat from our hands. They’re picky eaters, and callously toss aside all seeds except their favorites (usually sunflower seeds), and only come back later for the dregs when it's clear there are no more sunflower seeds. Meantime, the local sparrows have learned the drill, so they lurk in the wings (so to speak) for an opportunity to swoop down and grab the rejected seeds before the parakeets return for them. The kakariki are very flock-oriented, and have a clear pecking order. You can tell who’s on the bottom of the hierarchy by how threadbare their neck feathers are.

Last but not least, we got to watch the kiwis feeding. Kiwis are about as large as a chickken, but more ovoid. In fact, if you're olde enough to remember Al Capp's "L'il Abner", they look kind of like the schmoo, only with long, thin beaks. The keeper brings a bowl of worms and the like into their enclosure and places it by the window so you can watch, and the kiwis run down out of the gloom, with surprising speed, stuff their beaks with worms, and then flee back into the darkness. Because they’re nocturnal, the lights are kept off during the visitor hours so thatthey’ll be active. Even after 5 to 10 minutes acclimating your eyes in the dark, they’re hard to see; their feathers blend perfectly with the darkness, and even when they move, it's like shadows moving within shadows. The only way to spot them easily is to wait for the flash of their moving beak, which is a pale creamy color, as they root about through the leaves. When they stop moving, the beak looks just like a patch of moonlight amidst the bushes.

The zoo has many other interesting birds to see, including an enormous pigeon seemingly the size of a turky, oystercatchers, endangered teals, white-cheeked herons, and more ducks than you can shake a stick at. They also have tuataras roaming wild in the main aviary, though “roaming” might be a bit too strong a term, as the ones we spotted didn’t move an inch in the ca. 3 hours we were at the zoo.

On our way home, we stopped at a local supermarket to restock our breakfast and lunch foods, then returned home to rest up before dinner. We hung out for a couple of hours with Stephanie in the common room, as her office occupies a corner of the room, and chatted. She’s bright, personable, and a bit of a force of nature. Very pleasant company.

Dinner tonight will be at Hu Hu, a restaurant she recommended. More upscale than most places we’ve eaten, but Stephanie considers herself a bit of a food snob (her significant other is a very good cook), so anything that she recommends seems likely to be good. Based on the success of her recommendation for O Café, we’re confident it will be a good dinner. More in a bit once we’re back from dinner.

After a bit: We had a nice stroll down the hill from the hostel to Hu Hu, which is about 15 minutes away. I had a sirloin steak that wasn’t the finest cut of meat, but was nicely tender despite that, with a yummy green peppercorn sauce, fries, a couple onion rings, and a salad of shredded beats and carrots and rocket with a creamy dressing. Shoshanna had a local white fish called “gurnard”, which was tender without being mushy and served in an asparagus butter gravy, with a rocket salad and side of fried potato skins. We asked for tasters of the products from another New Zealand brewer, King’s Country Brewing. Shoshanna tried the pale ale and I tried the pilsener, and in the end, we decided we liked each other’s beer better. The pale ale had a nicely fruity finish, without excessive bitterness. We shared a hot fudge brownie for dessert, with “Black Doris” plum ice cream and a coulis of raspberry and English cream. A delicious end to a delicious dinner.

We ended the day with a stroll up the hill back to the B&B to wind down and pack our gear for tomorrow’s expedition.

Next installment: April 1