Early breaky, farewells to our fine hosts, David and Corey and the House of Ra, and at first light we head south to Clifton for our tour out to Kidnappers Point. We are in search of gannets, distinctively majestic seabirds, who live in colonies 9 km away at the end of the peninsula. There are 17,000 of them there, so we should find them. We are hauled, bumping and jostling, on trailers hauled by big ol' red tractors along the beach. At low tide, the route between the crashing breakers and the towering cliffs is just wide enough to pass. A fairly unique ride -- we pass beneath eons of geology and see several earthquake fault lines amongst the sedimentary layers of uplifted silt and conglomerates. Especially cool were circular canyons scoured out by the wind spinning water that trickled from above.
You could almost hear (and smell) the birds before you saw them. Perched everywhere on the poop- covered rocks above us, they cackled, spatted, displayed and flew around continuously. There were fuzzy white babies, black n' white mottled juveniles, and adults. With their bright white bodies edged with black tail feathers, golden head, black beak and green mask, the adult gannet is a gorgeous bird. They are related to boobies (of Galapagos fame). The juveniles, at about 4 months, do their first jump off the cliffs and fly away...all the way to Australia 4000km away. After 3-4 years, they make the long journey back as adults, take up lifelong mates and make babies on the cliffs here at Kidnappers Point, living up to 25 years. (The joke is that the gannet makes a better metaphor for New Zealanders than the kiwi does, since teen-agers tend to travel for a couple of years after highschool.) Our guide and driver on the ride, Colin, made endless anti-Australian jokes when he wasn't filling us in on geology and biology. Guess at 25million:4million, Australia is to NZ kinda what the US is to Canada....
Driving westward we cross the interior, past lots and lots and lots of sheep, even more pine plantations and finally down to enormous Lake Taupo. Looks like a major tourist trap with a circus in town, so we turn southward toward Tongariro Park and the big volcanoes that loom on the horizon.
Happy hour has us staring out at massive Ruapeho Mtn. (2797m or 9100ft) , sipping a delicate Viogner white bought at the small Brookfield winery yesterday and crunching Sesawheats with a tangy NZ sharp cheddar... Yum, wish you all were here.
Word of the day: trolley= shopping cart
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