-------------------------------The Remarkables--------------------------------
The woman at the hostel told me about the Lomand Trail, a 1 1/2 mile mountain hike which terminated near the Queenstown gondola. She suggested that I do the hike, ride the gondola down to the base of the mountain and then visit the kiwi and native bird sanctuary. And that is exactly how I decided to spend my day.
The going was steep, scenic and enjoyable. The Lomand Trail went right through a rainforest, much of it running along a rushing river (and decaying pipeline -- that part was not so scenic). It was one of those peaceful, "back to nature" hikes, filled with ferns, moss, babbling water and rocky outcrops. I met up with a New Zealander named Dave about halfway through the trail (the only other soul I saw the whole time) and we had an interesting talk on everything from mountaineering to AIDS, which made the remainder of the walk fly by.
I made it to the top of the mountain path, parted ways with my trail-mate and took the pleasant gondola ride down. Then I went to the bird sanctuary and saw my first live kiwis (well, I saw them as well as I could, anyway, since they are a nocturnal species and a dim red bulb was all that lit up their home -- hence, by the way, no pictures [sorry]). Kiwis are very strange birds. They are flightless, with no visible wings. They have a very long and narrow straw-like beak, a plump body and no tail. To get from here to there, they waddle about on their two legs, somehow maintaining a precarious balance. Their awkwardness notwithstanding, they move around fairly swiftly. They make a high-pitched, disyllabic call, for which the are named. The two birds I saw were a pair of Brown Kiwis, kept together in an attempt to mate them (though sadly, avian romance had yet to bloom, thusfar).
I saw many other birds native to New Zealand, including ducks, keas (a type of parrot) and owls (Note: The owls were studying me so intently with their piercing stares that I wasn't quite sure who was observing whom -- or should I say "WHOO"). Most of my newfound feathered friends were flying, waddling and swimming about uncaged, and many of the ducks bravely came right up to me. As was the case with many of my experiences on this trip, I was all alone. This allowed me the illusion of being the first human visitor to "birdland." All too soon, however, the spell was broken, and it was time to return to my own kind.
I bought a couple of items in the small gift shop on my way out of the sanctuary, grabbed a Japanese noodle lunch and returned to my hostel, where I took a kip. After catching up in my journal, I grabbed a quick dinner and boarded the bus which would take me back to Christchurch. I arrived in Christchurch around 10:00 p.m., checked into my new digs and went to bed.
1 comment:
Awh, my reader didn't update when you did, so I didn't know you'd finished the post. The part about the owls, hahaha, who? hahaha.
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