Sunday 8 March 2026 – I had pigeonholed Hokitika as simply being a staging post on our journey south to do some real touristing, but the events of the day proved that there was more to the place than simply an overnight stay. The weather outlook was not promising.
A closer look didn’t make it any more appealing
but here we were, and Jane had found some Things To Look For. We’d debated going out the previous evening, when the weather was, if not actually sunny, rather better, but this blog doesn’t write itself, you know, so I voted to stay in. Not the correct decision, I agree, but then I was happy to have caught up somewhat with keeping you, dear reader, up to date with our adventures.
Anyhoo….it was damp, and I had low expectations of Hokitika. These were gradually confounded over the course of the morning. Even in dull and grey conditions, it has a charm all its own; somewhat hippy,
and very arty.
The beach access street
was lined with artworks, the winners and runners up in a recent competition.
The town is also noted as a centre for “greenstone” – jade; you’ll remember the lady at the Beach Coffee Cart in Tongariro? She mentioned the jade connection, and Jane thought it would be worth looking around to see what was on offer. There were many outlets and much exquisitely carved greenstone to admire, including this charming place called Bonz’n’Stonz,
where not only could you buy ornaments in jade and other materials, but you could also have a session where you could learn to carve it yourself.
After this window shopping, we stopped off for a coffee in Thatcher and Small, clearly a popular place for a Sunday breakfast and reading of the papers.
The coffee was very good, but it took them over 25 minutes to deliver it. You really have to be not in a hurry for your coffee in this country. Then we headed towards the town clock
which is a memorial erected to the memory of soldiers lost in the Boer War of 1899 – 1902. Pointing at it was another statue, commemorating the pioneer settlers of Westland.
Jane had spotted an “attraction” on Google maps called “Driftwood Sculptures”, so we headed in their direction, to find that they were just beside the Town Name
which itself was beside another name,
that of the tribe that formerly occupied much of the South Island before they were displaced by Ngāti Māmoe, who in turn were later dominated by Ngāi Tahu. There will be a quiz later. The driftwood sculptures themselves
were not something that made for a great attraction, particularly since the rain was becoming quite persistent by this stage, so, seeking indoor entertainment, we made our way to the National Kiwi Centre. Which is basically an aquarium. From the outside it looks rather ramshackle, but it’s well-organised inside, with several tanks of aquatic life, such as turtles
Kokopu, which the locals call Whitebait.
Not the same as UK whitebait, I don’t think… They have axolotls
which I’ve never seen before, but which any fule kno is a species of paedomorphic mole salamander. Oh, yes it is. They have a large tank with a lot of giant longfin eels in it – maybe 5 or 6 feet long and astonishingly as much as 100 years old
and one of the attractions of the place is the opportunity to feed these things. I was expecting this to be done by staff, but actually visitors are allowed to hand meat over to these creatures, which, it became clear, haven’t got very good vision.
I was expecting a feeding frenzy with lots of thrashing about, but actually it was a relatively calm affair. Visitors could also go and stroke them to understand what their skin felt like. Jane reports that it feels like stroking a plump, slightly warm, satin pillow.
Amazingly, for somewhere that bills itself as a national centre for the beasts, they do have a couple of kiwis, and these were fed after the eels. They are, of course, kept in dark conditions, but we were able to see the back end of one stubbornly sleeping in a corner, and another one fossicking around looking for food in its pen – it seemed more interested in that than the food which was placed there by the staff, actually.
OK, I confess; this is a photo of a photo which we were given at the centre; photography by visitors was strictly forbidden.
All these things served to combat the grey and depressing nature of the weather and left a nice impression of Hokitika, which is small but full of character. But we only had the one day there, and it was time to go into Haydn, which I’ll tell you all about in the next entry.
Thursday 26 February 2026, evening – Having relaxed a while after our peregrinations around the waterfront, it was time to gird our loins to go out and Be Educated. We had a private guided twilight tour of Zealandia. I knew that this was some kind of a wildlife experience, but little more than that. I wondered, frankly, what kind of wildlife one could expect within a seven-minute drive of the centre of a capital city, but realised that the best time to see any was probably as the daylight ended. So, we rocked up at 6.15 ready to see what could be seen.
Our guide was Matt, and he was ably assisted by a volunteer, Sharon, one of the over 500 that make a huge contribution to the place. They were both knowledgeable and passionate about what Zealandia is for. And, after a short biosecurity check to make sure we weren’t harbouring any unwelcome critters in our bags or on our shoes, Matt showed us into a small theatre so we could watch an introductory video. This set out to compress a thousand years into about eight minutes, and it covered the impact of humans on the poor unfortunate animals which had the bad luck to have evolved entirely separately from any mammals of any pith or moment for the eighty million years or so since Zealandia (the continental chunk) had split from Gondwana (the great lump at the bottom of the early Earth which spawned the continents as we know them today).
The human impact is not inconsiderable. For once, the blame can’t be laid entirely at the door of modern humankind; the damage was started when the Polynesians arrived with their crops and their livestock, and immediately began competing with the indigenous animals for resources. The rate of damage was accelerated by the arrival of the Europeans with their extra pests (such as stoats, weasels and, it has to be said, hedgehogs) and vermin such as rats. Flightless, ground-nesting birds and lizards, whose main survival strategy was to remain still, didn’t stand a chance, particularly when the forests they lived in were chopped down and replaced with fields and Monterey pine. So, starting about thirty years ago, the people behind Zealandia (the wildlife reserve) conceived a mission to take a 225-hectare patch of land which was little-used, having been largely set aside for a drinking water reservoir, and attempt to return it to what it must have been before the arrival of humans – and then use it as a basis for educating people and attempting to re-establish the connection between people and nature.
We were equipped with red light torches, and the four of us spent the next three hours wandering through the area. There’s a predator-and-pest excluding airlock arrangement of doors to minimise the chance of incursion of unwelcome creatures, and the whole area is surrounded by a fence which has been carefully designed to keep out as many of them as possible.
It’s not mouse-proof, apparently, but other tactics, mainly traps, have eradicated the mice. The team there are perpetually on the lookout for incursions and the possible causes of them (e.g. a tree falling on the fence) and they do manage to keep on top of the predator and pest problems.
A Silvereye obligingly paused to pose for us in a nearby tree
and as we walked out over what used to be one of the drinking water reservoirs, we saw some pied shags
and a diving duck.
It was actually very difficult to see many of the birds in the trees, although one could hear them all around,
and a special “bird call” station had been set up
so that one could listen to the calls of various birds that one might encounter – including the spotted kiwi which can be found in Zealandia after dark – if you’re lucky.
They look like lizards, but this is New Zealand, remember? So they’re not. The tuatara is the only extant member of a distinct lineage, the previously highly diverse order Rhynchocephalia. So now you know.
New Zealand has a native parrot, called the kākā (pronounced “carcar”). Some can be found in Zealandia, where special feeders, that only the kākā are strong and smart enough to open, are maintained.
A North Island robin was pecking around to pick up any scraps that the parrots dropped,
as were a few California quail, a species introduced as game birds and now flourishing in New Zealand.
They’re considered harmless and do the same job as the (now extinct) native quails, so they’re free to come and go to Zealandia as they will.
Another large bird is the New Zealand wood pigeon, which is the world’s largest pigeon. It’s known for eating over-ripe and fermenting berries from the karaka tree and getting drunk as a result. We were lucky enough to come across one which was having a feast and demonstrating its ability to eat the berries whole; it’s the only bird large enough to do this.
We trekked up a steepish path to the upper dam
which gave us insight into how close we were to “civilisation”,
and where Matt and Sharon
declared a tea break and served an infusion of the leaves of the kawakawa plant, a herbal remedy well-known for its analgesic and anaesthetic properties, with lemongrass and ginger.
After this point, photography became quite difficult, as it was getting dark and the red torches had to be used to see anything. The only way to view photos taken under this light is to remove all the colour. So, we could see this little gecko
but you’ll only get a b&w photo. Same for this highly attractive gherkin slug
and an animal that Jane really wanted to see – a giant weta.
These really are quite huge and, at over an ounce in weight (30g in new money) are among the heaviest insects in the world. Sharon also found us a Maud Island frog, one of the rarest frogs in the world, but you’ll have to take my word for that because it was too dark to get a photo. It’s a frog, but has very unfrog-like behaviour: it doesn’t croak; it doesn’t hop; it doesn’t have webbed toes; it doesn’t have a tadpole stage. It spends its entire life within a four square metre area, largely being stationary and trying not to be spotted by predators.
We had one final treat, a hint of which I can bring you courtesy of Jane’s swiftness with her phone. We saw a kiwi!
It was completely dark by then and only visible for an instant, but Jane managed to capture it. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to, so for once in my life I just watched, rather than trying to photograph.
I know. Extraordinary, eh?
So it was a late night, and we had to get up exceedingly early for the next day’s activity…
Friday 26 February 2026 …0530, to be precise, because we were going to be picked up at around 7am for a transfer to our day’s activity – a visit to Kapiti Island, a nature reserve which is accessed, as I understood it, by a ferry running from Paraparaumu, which is about 40 minutes’ drive up the coast from Wellington. So it was that a nice gentleman called Peter turned up in a nice BMW to whizz us along. There was one other passenger, a Danish chap called Torben.
We arrived in Paraparaumu with plenty of time for the 0845 departure and checked in at the office of Kapiti Island Nature Tours. We did the biosecurity check thing and they walked us around the corner to a cafe where we were treated to a coffee and a scone. Jane took the opportunity to go to the loo in the cafe, which had some very amusing decor.
It was at that point that things began to get a little weird. We were given directions to walk along the road a spell and then turn left on to the beach to meet our boat. So the three of us, Jane, Torben and I, walked along and eventually spotted what looked like a path down to the beach, where we could see what looked like a small boat. What I hadn’t expected was this.
That was our transport over to Kapiti Island. It was efficiently, but informally, equipped and run.
The tractor just backed into the water (people sitting at the rear were warned to hold up their bags in case of incoming seawater) and the boat simply lifted off it
and set off for a swift transit. It stopped at two points, Rangatira Bay in the middle of the island and Waiorua Bay at the north end, which is where we disembarked.
We were on a day trip, but others were staying overnight. We were greeted (in Māori) by Pania
whose family, it transpired, owned a chunk of the island and who would be our host for the day.
She led us up to a shelter where she briefed us on how the day would work
and nearby which were a couple of toilets.
Pania’s briefing was interesting, engaging and entertaining, as she described the history of the island and how it was immigrated by Polynesians (her ancestors among them) who started shaping the land to their ends and then adopted quite a lot of European imports, such as sheep and, interestingly, written language, as they came along. (Before writing, Polynesians had only an oral tradition and sculpture carving as a means to preserving their culture; written language they found very useful for passing messages between specific members of different tribes.) Her family resisted efforts by the white New Zealand authorities to take over the island, and so have ended up with some private land on the island and guardianship of the nature reserve there. They have made strong efforts to rid the island of invasive pests and predators: goats were removed in 1928; cats in 1935; possums by 1986, by the use of a blanket poisoning technique for the whole area except one protected spot; and rats by 1996.
She then led us on the first part of a walk around that part of the island we could reach on foot, pointing out a few things of interest as she went. For example, one might have expected these holes in the path to be made by ants,
but this is New Zealand, remember? Nothing is normal, and these are actually the homes of individual bees. They’re not like honey bees at all; they look more like flies and they only produce honey to feed their own offspring, rather than for a hive.
It was daytime, so no chance of seeing any kiwis, but Pania showed us a couple of burrows,
and then set us free to walk along the trails we could reach. There were only two; a circular one to a western lookout, and a there-and-back to a northern one. We carried on along the circular route, with me lugging the Big Lens in the hope that I might get some prized photos of the local birdlife.
Nope.
We walked for 5km along well-formed tracks,
past some admittedly handsome views
and some pest traps
in pleasantly rain-free weather. In total, I saw one black bird swoop from left to right across the track, and a pair of brown ones flit from right to left. And that was it. We could hear that there were hundred, possibly thousands of birds around us, but I think they were mocking us. They certainly weren’t showing themselves.
We got to the lookout which had, as one might expect, some decent views
and then, after a short rest, walked the rest of the loop
before heading to the lodge where overnight guests had been staying
for some lunch in the lounge area.
It was a good lunch, too; chef Ben
did a great job.
You can tell from the photo above that bird photography from the day was not an entire dead loss, as there were some photo opportunities waiting for us there with some sort of semi-tame birds nearby. Of particular interest for Jane were a pair of Takahē, the largest member of the rail family. Ben above is feeding the female, and this is the male of the pair.
There was also a Weka, (also members of the Rail family) scouting around doing its scavenging thing.
(I have video, but once you’ve seen one bird pecking around, you’ve seen ’em all, really). Finally, a Tūī settled for an instant on a branch nearby,
and that was it for the bird photography for the day.
Shortly thereafter, it was time to catch the “ferry” back to Paraparaumu, so we went to the beach to watch its arrival. The docking is not subtle; the skipper basically rams the beach, and the first mate, who’s a strong lad, manhandles a ramp down for the passengers.
The journey back was really quite rough, with the skipper taking no prisoners when it came to leaping the waves. It was reminiscent of our return from the Daymaniyat Islands in Oman, only a little drier and with a bit less feeling of impending doom. He managed to fit the boat into its cradle remarkably smoothly and that was the end of the crossing.
Peter was on the beach to greet us and take us back to our hotels, and that was it for the day, really. The Kapiti Island experience was enjoyable – a pleasant hike and a decent lunch, but photographically less rewarding than I’d hoped.
Indeed, that was it for our time in Wellington; the morrow sees us depart the North Island for, erm, the South Island. Well, there’s not a lot of choice of destinations easily reached from the North Island; we’ll be visiting the third New Zealand Island in due course, but you’ll have to stay tuned to learn more about that and, indeed, everything that happens to us on the Other Bits of New Zealand.
Tuesday 24 February 2026 – The activity scheduled for us on our itinerary today was an opportunity to go and see a gannet colony at a headland south of Napier intriguingly called Cape Kidnappers; the expedition was called a “Gannet Safari”, which seemed to be over-egging it somewhat. The idea, it seemed, is that we would be picked up, bussed out to see some gannets and then bussed back again; I wasn’t quite sure where the safari bit fitted in, somehow. Anyway, it was an opportunity to get the Big Lens out, for the first time this trip. I was glad to do so, having lugged the damn’ thing around for over two weeks already.
There had been some confusion about where we should be and when in order to be picked up – was it really necessary to get to the pick-up point in downtown Napier 45 minutes before the appointed time? The answer turned out to be no, and in any case the redoubtable Esther had contacted the Gannet Safari organisation and told them to pull their finger out got them to agree to pick us up at our accommodation. Accordingly, a pick-up bus turned up outside our front door and we hopped on. I had expected it to go via the downtown pick-up point, but actually it just turned round and headed directly out of town. The driver, a very affable chap called Pete, took us to the HQ of Gannet Central
where the safari message was clearly reinforced, and we eventually joined a group who got on a bus
driven by Pete, which was the transport to where the gannets were. As we went, Pete explained how the day would work, and also pointed out a few sights as we went past them. It would apparently be a three-hour excursion, and I was wondering how on earth one could make gannets, lovely things as they undoubtedly are, interesting for three whole hours.
After a short drive on normal roads, the safari element of the excursion was borne in on us; Pete turned off on to a very rough track, signposted “Cape Kidnappers”, which led on to private land, a whole estate with a farm, a golf course and luxury lodges. This is surrounded by a predator-proof fence and is also a nature reserve with a number of indigenous species thriving – including kiwis.
We passed some feral goats
and some great scenery
before Pete stopped at a cliff edge to brief us further.
He told us a story about a rockfall which had happened on the cliffs behind him
and explained that we would have about 45 minutes to view the gannets once we reached the colony. As we carried on, he gave us some information about the gannets, their reproduction cycle and migration. We would be seeing Australasian Gannets, adults and juveniles alike. The adults were able to fly, however the juveniles at this stage could not, but could be seen flapping their wings as part of getting in shape for when they were able to fly. At which point they would migrate some considerable distance – maybe as far as Australia. In order to do this, each juvenile, having been born weighing about 60g, would have to be fed a huge amount of fish by its parents in order for it to develop to a weight of about 3kg; it would end up weighing more than its parents because it needed the extra bulk to sustain it on its long migration while learning to feed effectively.
The track to get out to the colony was very rough and up-and-down and it became clear that the bus was quite a robust piece of kit, having four-wheel drive and a low ratio gear box to be able to cope with conditions. There was, incidentally, a second Gannet Safari bus tagging along as part of this trip – probably a couple of dozen guests in total.
This stopping point was an opportunity to appreciate more great scenery
the peace and quiet of which was disturbed by some very considerable mooing of cattle in the distance. I wanted to capture this on video
but couldn’t do so because there was too much chatting going on between the people in the group. I suffer for my art, you know.
The track led us down to where the cattle were
and we carried on to where we would be able to watch the gannets. Cape Kidnappers was named by Captain Cook, after an incident in which local Māoris had kidnapped a Tahitian boy crew member, thinking that they were liberating a Māori prisoner taken by Cook’s crew. The lad escaped OK and made it back to Endeavour, and the headland was thus christened.
Overall, it was quite a journey to get to the birds, which explained why three hours were set aside for 45 minutes of gannet watching. I wasn’t sure what to expect: would we be on shore watching them diving? Would they be visible only in the distance?
As it turned out, no.
We could get very close to them and they completely ignored us (indeed, we had to duck as they flew by on occasions). There were lots and lots and lots of them;
probably around 5,000 – and that was just this colony; there were three others in the vicinity, too,
but ours was the accessible one.
There were adults
and juveniles.
The adults bond, by and large, for life, and normally produce one egg per year in spring, giving the chick time to develop enough in order to take on the migration as autumn comes. Some adults, though, had laid a second egg. We saw one which was incubating an egg
though it didn’t oblige us by giving us a decent chance to take a photo of it. We also saw a recently-hatched chick,
This one, sadly, would not have time to fledge before it was time for their parents to leave, and so would almost certainly die. With that, and the uncertainties of the challenging migration, Pete said that only about 25 or 30% of chicks reached maturity.
One human-caused survival challenge for the birds had been substantially dealt with – predators such as cats, stoats and weasels. There were many traps set about the place and, in this private landscape, the problem had largely been solved.
We saw some examples of courting behaviour and feeding of juveniles, and these are included in this short video that I was able to produced from our visit.
After this absorbing morning, Pete drove us back to our accommodation and we were able to relax for an hour or two. Then we popped along the prom to take a look at the outside of the National Aquarium, which was just a short walk away. Pete had been somewhat dismissive of the exhibits inside, and anyway Jane was really only interested in the mural which adorns it and, indeed, surrounds practically the whole building. Here are a couple of photos of part of it, to give you an idea.
When we returned to our accommodation, we went and sat in the back yard in the hope that we could meet other guests there and, OK officer I’ll come quietly, have a drink or two. Two new arrivals were already there and over the next hour or so all the other guests came out and we had a pleasant chat with them – six Americans and two Swiss – with Esther and Tom making sure that we had snacks and refreshment.
For our dinner, we’d booked a restaurant recommended by Esther, the Central Fire Station. This was located, intuitively enough, in the old central fire station building which we’d seen on our walking tour yesterday; and a very good recommendation it turned out to be. It was conveniently about a 15-minute walk away, so we were able to walk dinner off as we headed back to 415. On the way, Jane spotted some street art
(again, nice decoration for public toilets), and, in investigating that, we saw other examples around, mainly, we thought, left over from the “Sea Walls” festivals which ran in Napier in 2016 and 2017. So, of course, we had to take some photos of these other murals.
And so has ended our time in Napier. We have to leave tomorrow, and head towards Wellington. In a way, we’re rather sad; we’ve thoroughly enjoyed our time at 415 Marine Parade, which is a very comfortable, well-run and amiable place to stay. But leave we must. En route tomorrow, we call in to visit someone I haven’t seen for over 20 years. I wonder how that will go?
