We drove through the center of New Zealand’s North Island, the epicenter of Maori life, to Rotorua. It was a long drive broken up with some interesting stops along the way. We passed beautiful green fields and hundreds of dairy cows. Dairy is the number one industry, except in 2019 it was tourism. China is the largest importer of the dairy from New Zealand. We have already enjoyed “hokey pokey”, vanilla ice cream with honey bits in it; delicious!

Our tour guide shared historical information as we rode along. The long and short of it: Abel Tasman and Captain Cook eventually discover this area of the world. New Zealand was once a state of Australia; however, in recognizing that Australia did not have New Zealand’s interest at heart, New Zealand became part of the Commonwealth of England. 

Our first stop Hamilton Gardens: a public garden on the banks of the Waikato River. We roamed the gardens and enjoyed lunch here also. There were many themed gardens. Enjoy the photos:

As we continued on our way to Rotorua, we stopped at the Nest Egg Kiwi Conservation Project facility. New Zealand’s national bird is the kiwi, which comes from the Māori language meaning “hidden bird”. Kiwis are nearly extinct in the wild so the nation has doubled down on conservation efforts with nest egg teams across the islands. The work here at this place is amazing, plus the country has set aside predator-free islands so the bird can survive! We had a tour here where they explained every step of their finding kiwis in the wild with their conservation dogs and transmitters on male kiwis. 

They have 120 conservation dogs that can sniff out a kiwi, but are trained to then sit and back away for a conservation person to go to the nest the male kiwi has been sitting on. They only collect the eggs, possibly 2, once the male kiwi has been on it for 60 days. They have incubators at their facility to handle the final 18-20 days … even with machines that turn the eggs each day! Once the egg hatches, they rear the young kiwi till it is about 2 pounds in weight and return them to the area they picked up the egg. The eggs are huge! It’s about a third of the female’s body size and when I held the model egg, I would say about 6 times the size of a chicken egg. 

Kiwis are small birds and since they are nocturnal we could only see them in the dark. The facility purposely sets up the kiwi’s day and night cycle so visitors can see them at their visit. No photos are allowed, but at least I saw 3 real kiwis. The staff report a high success rate in their breeding, raising and caring for the kiwis …. that was good news!

Did you know to refer to the fruit as kiwi fruit … not just kiwi, that is the bird. In the USA, we often see the green kiwi fruit. Here I had a golden, sweeter-tasting, kiwi fruit at one of my breakfasts. Also, I learned kiwi fruit is actually not from New Zealand! Learn something new everyday!