Day 26: Spending the day in Invercargill

After a good night of sleep, we woke up to a silent and rainy world. Not the perpetual type of rain, but more like a drizzle which turns into rain now and then and sometimes even dies down completely.
This weather is not too bad for driving and so we took off.

Before we went to Invercargill, we had already decided yesterday that we would visit the local wildlife sanctuary. They have a few native species of birds in pens amongst which the very rare Takahe. This is a chicken sized Pukeko. For those not familiar with New Zealand wildlife: a Takeha is like a fat, flightless black chicken with a very large slightly rounded beak. It is nearly extinct and there are about 300 birds in captivity or managed wildlife on predator free locations. There are a few still in the wild, but they don’t know the exact numbers of those populations.

At 09:15 the Takahe are fed, and a small introductory talk is given. After this we quickly were on our way further south to Invercargill.

Here, we spent the day walking in the park, which had a small museum, an aviary with lots of birds, a small zoo with local and native species of animals like feral goats and Kunekune pigs, rose gardens, a Japanese garden and quite a lot more.
What a wonderful way to spend the day over here!

Tomorrow, we are crossing the strait to Stewart Island, and this time not by boat.
We spent the evening repacking our bags, as we are only allowed 1 piece of baggage with a weight of 15kg per person on the plane. Let’s just say we carry quite a lot more on a daily basis!
It is a small plane, but I guess you’ll see more tomorrow!