NZ ZooLife

OK, arguably I am just putting off starting my entomology paper by posting this entry, but Scott and I decided to go to the Auckland Zoo today which is actually right down the road from us.

Many of you may know that at the Detroit Zoo, they have peacocks running around, well, at the AZ it was chickens.

They had some Hippopotomi named Snorkel, Faith, and Fudge. Not sure who this is.

This is a snake-necked turtle.

This orangutan is trying to get a treat out of a Kong.

If this seems to be at eye level with the meerkat, it is because it was taken through a plastic bubble inside their enclosure which was gotten to be crawling through tunnels underneath their enclosure.

This we suspect is "Willy", a Galapagos Island tortoise who had an unfortunate accident and had to have his...well an amputation of sorts.
This, as the sign clearly states, is a Zebra Finch.

This is also not the rare NZ tiger, but a Sumatran Tiger.

Interesting factoid for you, a group of tigers is called a stripe or an ambush.

This is a Tuatara. It is an ancient lizard species found only in NZ. They can live to be around 100 years old! They carry their eggs 9 months before laying them and then it takes 11-16 months for the eggs to hatch. They don't reach maturity until they are 15-20 years old and only mate once every 2 to 5 years. Wow! They also have a third eye on the top of their heads!

Unfortunately we aren't sure who this guy is, but he was trapped in a pen with a huge flock of lovebirds.

Wallabies or kangaroos? Not sure, but we think wallabies.

We spotted these Asian otters snuggling under a bush.
We had a lot of fun, but was a long day, and we were all tuckered out by the end.

Jen (and Scott)

New Zealand Wildlife Part 3

We got a rare treat today. We had the opportunity to see two specimens of the rare New Zealand Domestic Tiger:


OK, they aren't actually from New Zealand, which is why they have to spend 30 days in quarantine.

But they are tigers, at least that's what the big one said. Very fierce, with their purring and rubbing up against our legs. I was afraid for my life for most of the time we were in the enclosure with them.

OK, they aren't actually tigers either, but our very own orange tabbies, Crunch and Yeti, imported from the States.

Jen went and saw them right after they arrived from the airport and the kitties were, apparently, quite pleased to be in this fine country. And by "quite pleased", I of course mean really, really, unhappy.

They seemed in pretty good spirits today, though, and were very happy when we brought some cat toys to entertain them. They have a decent sized enclosure, approximately 10' x 20', but it is open to the elements (the top half of the walls are wire mesh), which we found very odd, and has a bare concrete floor. Apparently they don't have a lot of cats here that are indoor-only pets. Last night was very cold, it got down to about 40 degrees here, so we are concerned about the cats staying warm.

The plan was to purchase some cat bedding today and take it to them so that they would have some help in staying warm at night, but it is Good Friday, so nearly everything is closed. We managed to find a souvenir store that was open and bought a couple of sheep-skin rug type things for them.

We have approximately 28 days to get the house cat proofed, which is going to be interesting.

Wildlife Addendum

I was outside putting stuff into our shiny new shed so that it did not get more wet in the next batch of rain, when I found this on the wall of our house:


Kinda small as weta go: according to Wikipedia, the get up to 90 mm long (3.5 inches for you Yanks), but still pretty cool.

A bit of New Zealand Wildlife

Hey Everyone,

Sorry about the long pause in posts and the lack of cool pictures. Have been totally swamped by assignments and distracted by the awesome Spartan run in the NCAA Tournament! Go State!
Kiwi Fruit Kiwi also enjoyed watching the Spartans win against UConn.

I have finally seen my first real live weta in our yard, but did not get a chance to take any pictures due to the running and screaming. Here are some pictures of other NZ wildlife that has graced us with its presence around our house.
This is a Kotare or Kingfisher.These are Tiger Slugs.
And these are thousands of ants pouring out of our wall when the carpenter was replacing a window. Ick!!! One good thing did come out of this horrific event though. The carpenter, Ian, found a New Zealand penny stuck in the old window frame. They do not make pennies here anymore so it is cool and somewhat valuable.

The cats should be arriving into quarantine today, so we will soon be very busy cat-proofing the house. Especially since we now have a new set of french doors out onto our deck. Well technically the doors are used (purchased from a junk yard by our landlord actually), but they are new to this house anyway. You can also she our lovely new shed in this picture.
Well, just wanted to catch up a bit and fulfill a request to post more pictures of us. We miss you!!
Love,
Jen and Scott

Update...

We've been busy with not terribly interesting things around here, no great adventures to report. We had great plans to head up to Ninety Mile Beach over Easter weekend, but were foiled by trying to book things too late. No rental cars, and the cabins we were going to rent were already taken.

It turns out that was not so bad, as Jen is currently buried under about half a dozen assignments that are due shortly after her mid-semester "break", and so would have had to bring the laptop to work while on the trip.

We had a house-warming BBQ last weekend, which went quite well. There was a small amount of adventure in finding actual bratwurst to cook, but I managed to find some in a butcher shop down near a grocery store that we frequent. The BBQ chicken was the highlight of the menu, with the family BBQ sauce recipe now disseminated to both Germany and the UK.

Additionally, I accompanied the UA Fencing club to a tournament in Otahuhu. There was a good turnout: 25 foils, 19 epees, and about 6 sabres. I only fenced epee, but did well, placing 3rd.

We're having a couple of people over to watch a basketball game of some importance that is apparently going to occur tomorrow.

Go Green!

Adventures in Piha

Yesterday (Saturday), we were finally settled in enough that we could head out from the city and see some of the awesome nature stuff, which was the entire point of our coming to this strange country where they spell center with the last two letters swapped and everyone puts avocado on everything.

We were already renting a car to take care of some errands that were a bit difficult using public transit (chief among them: the purchase of a BBQ grill), so we got our errands done in a brutal 5 hour retail marathon and headed out to the West.

Our chosen destination was Piha, a small beach town on the west coast, not far from Auckland:

View Larger Map
After a few navigational adventures, we finally made it to the beach, where we immediately determined that our hiking boots had been a bad idea and ditched them so that we could walk across the black sand beach to stand in the surf. At this point, we somewhat regretted not bringing swim wear.

However, there was plenty of awesome scenery on which to climb, especially Lion Rock, which was a land mark of some significance to the Maori people who lived here.

We climbed up as high as we could, before the "Danger: You Will Die Horribly If You Go Past This Sign" sign (that may not be what the sign actually said, but you get the gist), and got a pretty breathtaking view of the surrounding area.

After climbing down, we decided to secure ourselves a nice patch of beach from which to watch the sunset (which was one of the goals of the trip). We found such a place and hunkered down for some people (and dog) watching while the sun slid towards the horizon.

The Kiwifruit Kiwi paid us a visit, which was a little surprising, given how far we had traveled. I suspect that he stowed away in our car for the trip out, then went and played in the sand dunes while Jen and I were on Lion Rock.



Then we got the payoff: Sunset over the Pacific.

KiwiFruit Kiwi Photo Essay

This KiwiFruit Kiwi Essay has been made possible by Gabe and Jess.