For our tenth wedding anniversary, in early 2020, before the big shut down, Cory surprised me with a trip to New Zealand and Hawaii. I have wanted to go to New Zealand ever since I saw the Lord of the Rings movies in the early 2000s. From what I saw in the films I thought it looked like such a beautiful landscape. In addition to the movies, I looked up some of the wildlife and sites to see and decided that we just had to visit.
Though we only were able to visit the North Island on this trip, New Zealand did not disappoint. The varied landscapes between Auckland, Rotorua and Wellington were breathtaking. It was exhilarating to see all kinds of strange new animals, not to mention my excitement when we went to Hobbiton, but that is for later.
While in Auckland, after we got used to driving on the opposite side of the road and the opposite side of the car, Cory happened to notice a pin on the GPS noting a nearby gannet colony at the Muriwai Scenic Lookout. We decided to take the short trip and see if we couldn't spot any of these sea birds.
Once we arrived at the car park at the scenic lookout the air was thick with the acrid stench of thousands of pounds of gannet guano. The smell was so strong at times it was hard to breath, especially on the, albeit short, ascent to the lookout point.
As we rounded the final bend on the path, we were greeted by an awesome site, tens of thousands of gannets and their chicks, nested on tall bluffs and sea stacks, and an amazing sea scape. The gannets flew to and fro as they searched for food to bring back to their chicks. They gently glided all around us, using the updrafts created by the wind coming off the ocean as they hit the bluffs. At times whether in flight or tending to their chicks, they were so close, we felt like we may have been able to touch them. Everywhere I turned there was another gannet, in some cases they seemed to pop up from nowhere just to check us out.
Not being able to cope with the smell much longer, Cory and I decided to retreat to our car. As we did so we found native Maori preparing to shore fish using simple rods made of what appeared to be bamboo. We also observed some, hippies maybe, with lumber and rakes down on the beach below the bluffs creating serpentine, concentric circles, akin to Celtic knots or maybe crop circles? Sand circles? I don't know. It would have been cool to talk to the native fishermen or the hippies or whatever, but I could no longer breathe and we had to get out of there.
Anyway this was just one of the amazing things I would see on this trip, there was much more to come.
We will have to go back to see the South Island of New Zealand.
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