The blog of the Jewell Whanau in Wellington, New Zealand.

Thursday, 31 December 2015

Last Post of the Year

Young Ed has joined us from the other side of the world. It is his first trip down under so we are trying to give him a taste of things Kiwi. His first stop after arriving at the airport was Garage Project. Today we took him to Zealandia. Here are Jen and Ed at the bottom of the lookout tower.
There’s a bit of repetition from the last post but we took a different route through Tui Glen and the Turbine Track. 
The robin were even friendlier than before
and I think this is a new fledgling all puffed up and nowhere to go.
One of the highlights was finding free range tuatara (previously we have only encountered them in the protected research area). We saw several sunning themselves outside their burrows
and venturing out to take the air.
To round off, this kaka looks as if it is blind in one eye. It didn't seem too worried about it though
and kakariki were busy prising millet from where it had been strapped to the tree.
So farewell 2015 and we wish everyone a healthy and prosperous new year.

Tuesday, 29 December 2015

Christmas in Paradise

Well, it feels like paradise. Daughter Jenny is home from the UK and the weather has been wonderful most of the time. In the week before Christmas Jenny and I made an early morning visit to Zealandia. We saw a great variety of wildlife –

kereru
tui
takahe
kaka
kakariki
in fact more kakariki than you could shake a stick at
tieke
robin
and tuatara.
Jenny loved exploring the bush 
and hamming it up on the elevated look out.
Christmas day dawned sunny, warm and still. We had breakfast on the deck.
Yesterday we visited Makara and climbed up the cliff to the windfarm. This is looking south across Opau Bay to the south island.
The turbines are erected on the ridges surrounding the valleys.
Looking north with Mana and Kapiti Islands in the distance the new Mill Creek windfarm is visible.
Jenny pretended she was a rabbit (she is a very silly girl).