Hi,
This long weekend post has all the content to keep my 4 readers happy. Cats, rats and iced coffees. Hahah.
In some great news, Toby passed his drivers licence test on Thursday! Woot! My clever wee man. And... it turns out he now has covid. He tested positive on Saturday morning. So we have sent him a care package. Poor wee man. Ups and downs.
Mike and I were up early on Friday morning to head up the coast to Paraparaumu. We raced out of the house without brekkie so it was lucky Transmission Gully made up time and we stopped in at a café.
It was super lucky because it turns out we should have had lunch with us for this first day. Fortunately the delicious brekkie at the Marine café kept us going to nibble time at the lodge.
But wait. What is it we are doing, I hear you ask. Well, this was my Christmas present (or was it birthday?) from about 1.5 years back. But we had to keep pushing it out for some reason or other. But finally - this was the weekend! Yes, an overnight glamping stay on Kapiti Island. And before I get lost in the memory of it all and forget to say - everyone should go and do this if they get a chance. What a superb weekend of manu and kai. Obvs not eating the manu. They were separate!
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| Marine café |
From the café we went 1 min up the road and parked and headed over to biosecurity at Kāpiti Island Nature Tours. They went through our gear and told us we could not put our packs down on the ground until we got on the boat. 8.45am departure. We got our ticket for the boat - and realised we had half a day at the usual visitor centre before heading to the northern part at 2.45pm. Oohhhh. See. Lucky we had that big brekkie.
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| Landing on Kapiti |
The boat was full of people eager to explore the island. And it turns out of the 25 or so onboard, about 14 were overnight visitors.
We walked to the visitor's shelter and heard a talk from Dave, our DOC guide. It was great - good history and conservation info. Then around 9.45am we got to explore. The Trig Track is now uphill only and labelled as strenuous and steep. So off we went. And we were the only punters to tackle it.
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| View south |
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| Historic whare |
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| Up Trig Track |
We stopped about halfway up when I heard a kōkako in the distance. Wow - what a lovely sound. I long for the day when we hear that in the bush. Imagine if we find some in the south motu? They have been extinct there for a while now. But I would love to hear that once more in the southern bush.
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| Relaxing on the beach |
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| Takehe |
Manaki met us off the boat and took us to the lodge. We were welcomed and had some introductions to the way things would run before taking our gear to our tent.
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| Our glamping tent |
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| Wow! |
We were in the furthest tent. What an amazing idea. Huge canvas tent with a ply wood floor, a deck with chairs and a lovely big bed with lots of duvets. I was going to look forward to snuggling in there later.
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| Walking to the lodge |
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| Dining room |
Mike and I hung around the lodge reading until nibbles came out at 5.30pm and we launched ourselves at them. Okay - I did.
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| Nibbles |
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| Another view |
Dinner was around 6.30pm and was roast lamb, with roast veggies and other delicious food, followed by pudding. Mmmm.
8.30pm saw us split up into two groups. We went with Kiana and she took us around the back of the lodge, by our tents, to spot kiwi. She had a red torch. But the moon was out and we could see well enough. We saw two kiwi really well. And a gecko.
Turns out the other group saw none! So we really got lucky there.
Then off to bed. And it was as amazing as I envisaged. The sounds of the night all around us. We did get woken up at 3am to hear a kiwi screeching right outside our tent - and then snuffling around us. It must have given Mike dreams - he dreamed Toby did not pass his licence because he failed to do a screech test. Hahahah. I was so confused when Mike told me because I missed the part where it was a dream.
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| We wake up in the tent |
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| Morning view |
We got dressed and headed in for brekkie. Very nice scrambled eggs. We packed up our tent and dropped the bags off in the room to get picked up for the boat at 2.45pm.
Then onto the boat and over to the mainland. Mike went for a run at Queen Elizabeth park while I read a book. Then home to bed.
Sunday saw us up early for trapline day. Callan got dropped at our house at 8am by Stacey. Then we picked up Andrew and the grubber and headed to Sunny Grove.
We all did Sunny Grove traps while Andrew grubbed our the drainage channels on the track. Got a few rats there. Then we split up and Andrew and I did KAT ("Kiwi Access Track") line. And out of the 6 traps, we had 4 kills. One including a stoat! That is the 3rd stoat in this area Andrew has seen in recent months.
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| A stoat on KAT! |
Mike and Callan also got a lot. 6 out of the 11 traps had rats on the Upper Turere Stream! Andrew and I headed up to the old track from the end of KAT and he went back to the scene of our trap replacement the week before to pick up the fadge we left behind.
Then we grubbed out the channels Andrew did not do on our way down. One was a huge effort - right below the clay bomber section. It was so buried. Hahah.
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| Channel clearing |
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| Andrew and his fadge get stuck |
We got to the car about 20 mins before Callan and Mike. 3pm we headed away to drop Andrew back home then Callan.
Home to have a light tea (leftover wraps), hose down our soggy muddy tramping gear, and watch YouTube with the cats seeking warmth.
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| Smudge draped over me |
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| Moxley draped over the laptop |
Off to bed early. Up for gym for Mike and a bike ride to work for me. Big day at work. Then I will ride home and pack for my long weekend and tidy the house for Jase and Chelsea.
Have an awesome day and enjoy the week ahead.
Love,
Angela
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