The Brotzman Adventures -Day 7

Return from the West

On this day we woke in Hokitika to the sounds of the ocean and the fresh, salty breeze. After getting our things together and the car repacked for the final time, we drove into town and had a lovely little breakfast at a small bakery. Sitting there on a Friday morning, we wondered how such a place stayed in business. It was peak breakfast hours and we were the only customers. Maybe there were more dinner diners, or maybe it was a slow day, but it really gave us some perspective on how difficult it may be to run a business. Especially a restaurant. Karen was baffled by the "Beans on Toast" option on the menu and just HAD to order it. So while my Dad and I got typical orders of eggs, toast and homefries, Karen was treated with some Watties baked beans, smothered in tomato sauce and drapped all over wheat toast. I know it doesn't sound very good, but in all honesty, it is quite tasty. Trust me.

So we enjoyed breakfast and then headed down the street to enjoy all the interesting shops. There were shops carving NZ jade, paua shell, woodcarvers, glassblowers...all sorts of artistics crafts with a plethora of purchasin opprotunity. Go figure. After a few small purchases we went to the local aquarium and "nature world" to get an upclose look at some more of New Zealand's interesting creatures. When we came into the front lobby, however, we found ourselves confronted by a knit shop and an elderly lady knitting away behind the desk. So, going with the knitting theme of this little trip, Karen bought some wool and we perused the rest of the gifts available in the shop. Then we bought our tickets to enter the miniature aquarium and sanctuary behind closed doors. Only in New Zealand can one find a knit shop and an aquarium all under one roof.

In the aqaurium we were greeted by seahorses, tropical fish, and lots of little lizards and turtles. In the middle of the room, in an enormous tank were adolescent eels. Enormous compared to anything else I had seen they were more than a meter in length and as wide as a strong man's bicep. It was clear that they loved the dark; they all tried to squeeze themselves into the few holes availble to them and, because there were so many, ended up just fitting in their heads. It looked as if a lot of large, grey, wriggly spaghetti was sticking out of these holes, trying desperately to swim further in. Quite disgusting. Would you rather put your face in the eel hole or punch yourself in the face? I'd rather punch myself in the face. Hard.

And just when we thought we had left the eels behind, we came into a second room with a similar tank and upon looking in could not believe what we were seeing. Behind the glass laid a large number of adult eels, enormous in comparison to the eels we had previously seen....in fact, they were enormous in comparison to pretty much anything. If one were to try and wrap their arms around these guys it would be difficult to do. They were as long as a car if not longer, and simply hideous. Each one lay on the bottom, it's mouth opening and closing as it breathed through its gills, it's angry eyes wide and inquisitive to the people staring at it. I began to see images of the tank breaking, the giant eels splashing out towards us, knocking us over, wrapping their giant, writing bodies around us. Eww. So we moved on. Would you rather play with the giant, adult eels or cut your leg off. Cut my leg off, definiltey.

But then, after the eels, we made our way towards the exit, for what was really the main attraction of this little expedition. The kiwi sanctuary. The kiwi bird is extremely endangered in New Zealand due to the fact that a) it cannot fly and b) a number of predators were carelessly introduced years ago that just love the taste of the little kiwi. Something like only five in one hundred kiwi chicks born in the wild will survive. And they are dying at an even faster rate. But this little place in Hokitika had four kiwi birds they were raising and training and getting ready to release into the wild. Well, three of them at least. One of the kiwis was 23 years old and had lost his leg in a hunter's trap when he was seven. Kiwis walk are bipedal, like any other bird. But without the ability to fly, one would wonder how this little guy got along with only one leg. Well, he used his long beak at his other leg! How cool is that! What a trooper. So we watched him eat and poke around the ground for a little while. The guy was so tame, we were standing within a foot or two over him, looking down into a giant playpen-like creation, without any sort of glass. And he didn't flinch. Just went about doing his thing. I could have reached out to touch him if I had wanted to, but we all know how my luck with animals had been going...plus, that is just wrong! Haha.

Then we moved on to watch the other three kiwis play around. And what a show they put on for us. Running about, pecking at each other, jumping on one anothers heads, eating and just being silly. They were very large, about one and a half times the size of a soccer or basketball. And we were lucky to see them so playful. After the kiwi house we took one last trip to the glow-worm dell to see what it looked like in daylight. Certainly it couldn't have been a natural structure, it had to be man made. But to our surprise it wasn't. It was just a well-kept path with a handrail that led into a small, round, hollow in the forest. Pretty amazing.

Hopping in the car we headed on to Greymouth to leave the car and hop back on the train to Christchurch. We turned in the keys to the car but I'm dumb so I left some stuff in the center consol that I'll have to pick up during my travels with Craig next week. But how cool is that?! That you can leave something in a rental car, call them the next day, have them know exacly what it is and put it on hold behind their counter for you to come get when you stop through again. It's like a really small community, this entire country.

We enjoyed the train ride home, cloudy as it was again. I slept a lot of the way, knitted a little, read the book my mother sent over with Dad and Karen. It was nice to see Tower Junction as the train pulled into Addington station. It was nice to get in my car and drive down familiar streets. But it still didn't feel like home. Any of you who have traveled know what I mean. It was close, but it was still a foreign land, not Binghamton, New York. Not Clinton NY. But it's getting closer, I think.

So I dropped Karen and Dad off at their hotel while I went to get some mexican for dinner. They came over and I cooked up a nice little meal for us all to enjoy in a more relaxed fashion. The big part of our adventures was over, but we weren't finished completely. We still had one more small leg to go the following day.

All in all, throughout our west coast travels, we covered over 900km...and I drove all but 8 of it. Needless to say, when Craig and I go for our holiday he will definiltey be the one behind the wheel.

-Nic :-)