Mt. Bruce and Te Papa

When we arrived Mt. Bruce National Wildlife Centre in the morning, a light rain was falling. We pulled on some rain jackets and pressed on. Just out the back doors of the visitor's center is the enclosure for the Takahe. These colorful, turkey sized birds were long thought extinct until 1948. They look like corpulent relatives of New Zealands far more common Pukekos. Unfortunately, we could barely glimps him among the grass and bushes where he was hiding.
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We then turned into the dark kiwi house, for another look at the adept foragers, with a comical wobbling gait. Outside the Kiwi house, they also have tuatara. Throughout the park, the birds are kept in open air enclosures, set within the forest edge, so that wild birds, like the native pigeon mingle closely with the captive ones. Among the several bird species that they have here, one of my favorites was the kokako. This gray bird has blue wattles and a black eye mask, and a peculiar song.

We left Mount Bruce and headed south for Wellington, and the Te Papa Museum. Te Papa contains a wide variety of exhibits, but the main attractants for us where the natural history exhibits and Maori art and culture exhibits.

The Maori artwork and architecture is focused on elaborate carving. Their homes and meetinghouses are spectacular. They also make a wide variety of objects from the plentiful jade on the island. The natural history museum covers the animals that are part of New Zealand's ecology, both on land and in the sea. They even have a life size replicas of the extinct moa and a great blue whale's heart. Beyond this, the museum has a myriad of exhibits, from an earthquake house to an area on immigrants, and even a statue of bull made of corned beef tins.