After a quiet and comfortable night in Lower Hutt, we got an early start on our visit to Zealandia, the predator-free refuge within Wellington. But first we had to find breakfast...and coffee. A search of Google turned up the Aro Cafe in Wellington, not far from Zealandia. After many twists and turns on narrow streets, we found it on a narrow street in a group of small shops. It seemed to be in a hipster neighborhood, but not so glitzy as in the US. The cafe was unpretentious to the point of a little shabby, but the coffee was good and my breakfast of eggs on toast with bacon was quite good as was Ellen's spinach & cheese scone.
Fed, we were off to find Zealandia. After many more narrow twisty streets, with heavy traffic now included, we got to the park about 20 minutes before it opened. Once the visitor center opened, we had an hour before our tour, but they had exhibits and a cafe to keep us busy.
Our tour of 10 people was led by an older woman who did her best to keep us out of the way of a cruise ship tour that arrived late and was now starting at the same time as us. She was quite successful, taking down smaller trails while pointing out the botanical features as well as doing a good job of finding birds. On the two hour tour we did see four new birds, but not the Takahe or Hihi, which were the rare hard-to-spot ones.
After the tour we grabbed a quick lunch at the cafe and was off for a four hour drive to Turangi, just below Lake Taupo on the Tongariro river. It was straight up SH1, main route from Wellington to Auckland. Once the motorway ended outside of Wellington is was an alternately fast and slow drive when in the towns in traffic and through lots of roadworks, then scarily fast in the twisty countryside where the traffic is moving at nearly 70mph on a two lane road.
The route took us past the East side of the Tongariro National Park over the Desert Road. It was a clear day and the three active volcanoes of Ruapehu, Tongariro and Ngauruhoe stood out to the west. The road passes through the only "desert"in New Zealand, but it is very similar to the desert grassland on Buenos Aires NWR in Arizona. Actually, it is most similar to what Buenos Aires was before ranching, mostly tussock-like bunch grasses and no mesquite. There are probably quail...we did see California Quail at Zealandia.
We arrived at the Major Jones bridge around 5pm, which is supposed to be the prime Blue Duck hotspot and had out first unsuccessful search. We then had an almost unsuccessful search for a place to stay. Every place in Turangi, even the expensive ones, was full. We finally managed to get a room at Tony's Lodge B&B about 15km away.
After a dinner at the Italian restaurant in Turangi, a real throwback to the 60's, we were off to find Tony's. Quite a surprise it was. It was just a step above a hostel, with a mix of dorm rooms and a couple of single rooms, one of which we had. It was complete with shared toilets and showers and a shared kitchen for breakfast...and it had mosquitos, millions of mozzies.
Not knowing about the mosquitos, we opened the window of our room as wide as it went to air out the room's disinfectant aroma. The room immediately filled up with mozzies. As I went to close the window, they were coming in in hordes. I had to point my flashlight out the window at the roof to distract them so I could close it.
It was off to find Tony, who gave me a can of bug spray. After spraying the room and returning the spray, I returned to find every surface and bit of floor covered with dead bugs. Ellen was off taking a shower as this was going on and I was able to brush off the bed and sweep the bodies into the corners so that she was spared the horror when she returned.
It was not the most comfortable sleeping night.
Needless to say, we got away early the next morning and went back to the bridge to another unsuccessful search. We did find a most delightful cafe, the Creel Tackle House & Cafe, a combination fly fishing shop and cafe with good breakfasts and excellent coffee. You could also buy any bit of fly fishing tackle you needed. This fact, eventually gave us the key to our lack of success.
We spent the next four hours searching along the river looking in every spot the locals we met knew there were always Blue Ducks—but no luck.
What we did see were lots and lots of fly fishermen. They were in every hole and pool along the river, in multiples. It wasn't as bad as combat fishing in Alaska, but there were no empty spots outside the patches of rapids. My supposition is that there so many anglers that the ducks made themselves scarce.
So, no Blue Ducks for our life list.
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