June 4

Otorohanga Kiwi House - who knew the Kiwi was a bird, it is New Zealand's national bird.  They are on the endangered species list, a fairly large bird with a very long beak.  We couldn't take any pictures because they are nocturnal.  We were lucky to see two of them.  I will have to scan a postcard when I get home.  We did take some pictures of birds that we don't see.

This little duck followed us around, very white head...doesn't fly

This little guy is a Kea, apparently the smartest bird in the bird kingdom, they can problem solve...They didn't tell us what the problem was that they solved, however, they are cute

Next we went to Waitomo Caves - there are some 585 caves in this area of New Zealand, they were quite interesting...we took in two caves, one with Stalactites the ones from the top down and the other was the Glow Worm Caves, this was extremely interesting, unfortunately again a camera is not allowed and it wouldn't have mattered because you can't get the real effect of the glow with a flash.

It is pretty hard to take pictures in a cave, even with a flash. It just doesn't show up the interesting things in the background.

This is a living wall on the way into the Glow Worm Cave

This was just a lovely scene after we got off the boat, bringing us out of the Glow Worm Cave.

This is me after getting off the boat, the entire area is really interesting to look at, never having been in a cave before, now two in one day...pretty spectacular I would say.