Wellington
Wellington dawned fine and calm for the guests’ visit to the capital city known for its persistent winds. A leisurely breakfast was followed by the walking tour through the streets heading west towards parliament buildings and Old St Paul’s Anglican cathedral. Then the buses travelling via The Terrace and Victoria University of Wellington dropped the guests at the high point of the city’s botanic gardens close to the upper terminus of Wellington’s famed cable car for them to take a leisurely stroll to observe the mostly introduced trees and shrubs in the park before emerging at the Lady Norwood rose garden. A highlight of this walk was the spotting of the rare native saddleback, a temporary ‘escapee’ from Zealandia. Buses then transported them to Te Papa, the national museum where they were split into groups and taken to various exhibits in the museum.
The afternoon was taken up with a visit to Zealandia, Wellington’s fenced off open sanctuary for rare bird species which was opened in the suburb of Karori some 15 years ago, and which is one of very few such urban sanctuaries in the world. The guests were split into smaller groups and under the leadership of a guide taken on walking tours around the park. Not being a zoo there was no guarantee of spotting birds but the guests in this author’s group did observe the stationary tuatara-adults and babies-in cages as the adults are known to cannibalise their young alongside the very rare takahe (thought to be extinct until, in 1947, an Invercargill doctor G M Orbell rediscovered them in the Murchison Mountains close to Te Anau in Fiordland) hihi or stitchbird, korimako or bellbird, tui, the native scaup and brown teal ducks (the first named unusual because it dives for its food) and the ubiquitous mallard. The highlight for this writer however was his very first sighting in the wild of a ruru (morepork) and its chick — New Zealand’s only native owl. Nocturnal and very rarely seen in daylight the chick in particular amused guests by staring intently at them when the writer softly cooed the mmooorre—pooorrrkkk sound the bird makes. A very impressive sighting.
As the ship was not leaving Wellington until 20.30 many guests took the opportunity to eat out at one of the capital’s many fine restaurants. Logan Brown and Roxy’s both in Cuba Street were particular favourites. Comments on the cuisine were uniformly laudatory.
