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.
The next creatures we came across were tuataras.
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.