Huka Falls and Rototura

Huka Falls of Lake Taupo, New Zealand

We were up and on the road at 8AM, headed for Taupo, and then Rototura. I just drove, my mind having zero expectations for the day. Just happy to drive through sheep infested grasslands with the sort of scenery seen in illustrations from fairy tales. Ila however was eager to take a boat trip on Lake Taupo that would get us a good view of Huka Falls. Arriving at Lake Taupo we waited for whomever ran the boat trip to arrive. When someone did arrive, it was the boat captain. He said the boat would take off as soon its other passengers - teachers and school children - we could leave. The captain was sure there would be room for Ila and I. Departure was set for around 12:30-ish. 

 While we waited, I rummaged around the car park, and noticed something fluttering. I assumed it was a Sky Lark which love to 'sky lark' about. This bird kept fluttering upward, hanging the air, then landing. Then I got close enough for photos and became besotted - this was no Sky Lark, this was a decidedly fancier bird.



I followed the little fluttering thing for quite a while. Finally it very-nearly-settled down, allowing shots of it through fencing posts.  The little beauty with it's fancy tail and striped face was a Fantail, one of the endemic (native) birds.

The Fantail is loved by Kiwis for the flashy tail it doesn't hesitate to show off.

I only managed one photo of it and that tail is quite the show stopper, even when seen through posts.

Flying New Zealand Pigeon - sadly, not my photo

When it was time to board the boat, I was pretty riled up by the local birds. Nearly lost my mind when I spotted a gigantic pigeon, high overhead, bulleting into the forest. It was a native species, a New Zealand Pigeon. It shot by quickly enough I couldn't begin to get my camera aimed at it. I was talking myself out of the idea that I'd actually seen the bird.


However, when the kiddies and teachers arrived, and it was time to board the boat cruise, the captain, bless his heart spoke to me. "You're a birder aren't you? Saw you watching that New Zealand Pigeon fly by."  Having the captain second my identification of the pigeon was comforting and I thanked him as profusely as if he'd just saved me from drowning.

There were other birds of note before we even left the dock. Right next to the boat an Australian Black Swans sat on its nest, while its mate dipped and dabbled, pulling up long strands of weed, for placing on the nest.

Swan pulling up lake weeds, & placing them on its nest

'Dab Chick' or New Zealand Grebe

The Captain pointed out a teeny wienie water bird, slinking on the off shore. He called the cute little thing a 'Dab Chick'. Reminded me of Texas Least Grebes.






As the little boat chugged onto the lake, I realized this was going to be a wonderfully birdie day. Here are the birds of Lake Taupo.

Australian Coot

Little Pied Shag

Rafts of New Zealand Scaups

 Black Shag. 'Shag' is the British name for Cormorants. Interesting as 'shag' has other British meaning as you'd know if you, say, enjoyed watching 'Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery'.

Black Shag

Australian Black Swans were everywhere on the lake

 The captain made sure to bring the school kiddies over to view a Black Swan sitting on its nest.

I suspected this swan was used to being
approached by boats. It didn't budge an inch

Sacred Kingfisher

I got one far off photo of a Sacred Kingfisher, another White-faced Heron.











I loved seeing lots of beautiful little red-legged shore birds, Pied Stilts, that several times, bulleted past the boat.

Pied Stilts

It took about an hour to get up to Huka Falls. Along the way there were several vantage points that people hiking though the riparian jungle on either side of the lake, could view the lake and the falls. When we got to the falls, the captain called on group after group of the school kiddies to climb onto the bow of the boat, to scream and shriek with the joy of getting misted over by the waterfall.

School Teachers

I, a connoisseur of international kiddos, was tickled to see they appeared to be Maori. During all this, Ila and I were seated at the back of the boat. I'd already had a look inside the body of the boat, in which the ceiling was coated with international money of all sorts.

The ceiling of the little boat was papered over with international money





Then to our startled 'horror' Ila and I heard the captain cry out, "Now let's have the two lovely American Ladies get up on the bow, to see the Falls."

Amazing that we weren't the ones screeching when we got our turn, which you can see below.


Thoroughly enjoyed the boat cruise, which I probably wouldn't have even thought of doing had I been on my own, so thanks for that Ila!

The boat trip completed, we then drove to Rototura, which is a HUGELY popular tourist town. There we checked into the ginormous Millennial Hotel.

The Millennial has the biggest lobby I've ever seen in a hotel

There was beautiful, hand carved Maori artwork and paneling strewn about.

Greenhouse type walkways between the hotel sections

We were tickled that for whatever reason, we scored another 'upgrade', though this time it wasn't to a penthouse, but to a room with quite a nice view.

The view from our hotel room, overlooking Lake Rotorua

Also part of the 'view' is the Rotorua Museum

It was classic Crepes Suzette with lemon ice for 'moi'

We put our stuff away and zoomed out for a short drive and a long walk in downtown Rotorua. We hit up the numerous souvenir shops (no... I restrained myself). Then later in the evening we had dinner at the Millenial's restaurant where it was lamb for Ila and duck for me, and yummy desserts for us both.

Rainbows and Birdies on the North Island

Brilliant Rainbow over Auckland 

Fruits &cold cereals were more
 in line with my idea of breakfast

Today started with Ila and I 'going for' the Ibis hotel's ₤22 NZ  continental breakfast. The buffet had soooo very much food it made it hard to pick what to eat.

There was even an area that had Japanese breakfast - soups and white rice, but I decided to skip the Asian food and I can tell you that was a first.

Kinda, sorta a New Zealand breakfast

There was the usual fruits, porridge and pan cakes (extra fee).

And there was the usual European breakfast stuffs: cold cuts, salami, cheeses, green peppers, tomatoes, etc. that my American palate associates more with lunch than as breakfast fare.  

I stuck with the fruits, cold milky porridge stuff (which I still don 't what it is called, but I love it) and of course, pastries.

Oh yeah, almost forgot there was not only Vegemite, but Marmite too. Yum! Not joking, I actually like the stuff. Both these famous concoctions are the yeast and stuff left over from brewing beer. Nice on toast or crackers. As Uncle Matt likes to joke, 'It'll make you beautiful: put hair on your chest!'

Breakfast concluded, we got our stuff, then climbed into the barge... I mean the SUV. Soon I realized the GPS wasn't working. After two hours of more or less driving in circles we eventually hit the Wellington Airport. There at the car rental place we got a functioning GPS. Whew! From there it was four hours to our next stop, Napier.

The coolest thing was we ran across was a  rainbow filled sky that glittered over sheep filled meadows. A zillion photos had to be taken of said rainbow.

Then, as we drove through lovely countryside, I had some incredible birding luck, spotting a meadow with BIRDIES!  I deserted - temporarily - Ila, and with camera crossed a road to a farming pasture with horse and several busy little Pukekos meandering about, feeding on bugs and such.

Pukekos rummaging in a horse pasture by a farmhouse

Fairly primitive looking fowl is the Pukeko aka New Zealand Swamphen) 

Masked Lapwing with yellow face

Then, I was near floored when I spotted another couple of birds for which I had zero idea of what I was looking at! They had black caps, a black necklace band, and strange yellow skinned faces. They made the Pukekos look bland by comparison.


The strange little birds were Spur-winged plovers aka Masked Lapwings.

Masked Lapwings hunting bugs in the pasture

Australian Magpie

There was a nice Australian Magpie in the meadow as well. I'd seen many magpies since the start of the trip on the south island, but this was my first chance to photograph any. Not great resolution as the bird was far enough away to challenge my poor little Lumix camera's telephoto range.



And, as they say, 'that's not all folks!' When I finally tore myself away from the beautiful birds, we traveled only a few kilometers when I spotted a marsh, down below the road, that was filled... I mean filled with beautiful black splotches... Australian Black Swans - be still my heart.

The black blips are Black Swans as far as the eye could see

The swans were busy grazing on the grass

White-faced Heron

And the birder joy kept coming. Overhead a harrier flew by, followed by a beautiful White-faced Heron.





So a few birdies to view and photograph and the day was MINE, YAHOO! Our final stop for the day was the small town of Napier. There is no obvious tourist trap type places in Napier, so it was mostly just a place for us to be down for the night. We stayed at a small motel, that didn't have a restaurant. So for dinner, we went downtown, and there walked around looking for a place to eat. We ended up having a modest Asian meal at a small, deli style spot. You could have fed me hay tonight though, and I'd have hardly noticed - because I was still agog over the cool birds I got to see and photograph today.

Ferry up to North Island

Picton Harbor seen from Ferry Terminal, South Island

This morning's breakfast was treats bought last evening during our brief tour of Kaikoura. Instead of the standard drip coffee maker, our room had a French Press. That means there was great coffee to enjoy with tasty breakfast pastries.


Side story here... we are always on the hunt for interesting bead shops (Ila's thing) and yarn shops. So today we passed a store on the highway, and we both shouted, 'Heritage Beads'! 

So we took a U-Turn. But when we got to the store... Bread? WTF?! Laughed our heads off, because obviously one sees what one wants to see.



After breakfast we had a 2 hour drive to Picton, to catch a ferry to the North Island. It was a good thing we gave ourselves plenty of leeway on timing. That is because after parking the rental car, we had to lug our baggage to the ferry's rental car return office, an office largely unhindered by any personnel whatsoever. The rental car keys had to be dropped in a slot on the rental office door. That
could have been a huge problem as I remembered I'd left an item way the hell back at the rental car, so had we dropped off the key before I'd remembered what I left behind, it would have been 'Bye bye trinkets!'

The Ferry Building returned us to a state of happiness. We were able to check in our luggage - no charge - so as to not need to drag our bags around on the ferry ride. Huzzah! As we arrived quite early, we seated ourselves upstairs in the terminal. There we enjoyed Lemon Ginger Honey Tea while I began to catch up on my journal entries. Occasionally I glanced out the window to see gulls and such flying by.... then I noticed one bird that dove headfirst into the harbor. I was up and on the balcony, spit spot! There were birdies out there!

My photo: Austrailasian Gannet

The diving bird was an Austrailasian Gannet. My hastily taken photo at right is crap, but diagnostic: large blue bill, yellow head, white body & trailing black wing feathers. See 'professional birdie photo below:

Professional Gannet

Only then did I notice a host of cormorant like birds, out in the  harbor, atop a floating pier. OMG! They were Spotted Shags, and were so exotic looking I was mesmerized. 'Shag' is the British name for Cormorants. Was thrilled to get in so much birding with so little effort.

Spotted Shags - new birds for my world list (yippy skippy!) The gulls
to the right are Southern Black-backed Gulls (another world list lifer)

At long last the passengers were allowed to board the newly arrived Ferry. I thought there were about umpteen too many stair cases to go climb to get where we needed to be.


On board we bought hefty lunches in the Ferry cafeteria, then trotted up one side & down the other side of the boat, looking for the lounge. After false starts we found the spot - where loads of passengers were comfy in lounging chairs.

Snooze city, even with a lovely game of soccer on the Telly

The most exciting bit of the voyage - other than the decidedly rough seas, was that I had a glimpse of a spectacular albatross sailing low over the rough waters. Alas! Far too many species out there, and far too poor a viewing to hazard an ID.

At the ferry ride's end, we had to hustle, to get to get the ferry port's car rental desk before 1800 hours to pick up the next rental car. We just made it.

COMING RIGHT AT 'CHA!

The rental car was 'generously' upgraded to a silver SUV Highlander, a boat SUV the approximate size of the Titanic.

After successfully driving us to the Ibis hotel, I was told there was no more hotel parking, but that just outside - and here, the clerk pointed out the glass front across the street - was a free parking space.

I raced outside and parked the car. Let me rephrase that - I parallel parked a barge from the right side of the car, on the busy Auckland business street. Not to brag, but I managed a perfect 77 point parking maneuver (oh shut up, you couldn't have done better!) and I was not issued a medal and a trophy cup for my efforts. Life can be so unfair.

Ila had the lovely duck breast 

All comfy in our swank-ish hotel room (it was not quite the penthouse standards we hoped to grow familiar with) & settled in we decided to have dinner at one of the hotel restaurants.

Ila chose the duck breast with veggies.

This delicious dish deserves a better name than 'Pork Belly'

I - who by the way, love duck any way I can get them - went for something different:

'Pork Belly', slow braised with saffron and apple puree, torched with pomme battonet, persimmon two ways, crackling crunch & pork trotter jus.

The above description means, 'Yummy pork with nifty sauces and stuff'

Thus endith the day. And may I add, there is never quite enough of the yummy sauces!