Sunday 9th September – The trip to Tiritiri Matangi Island

I was up early to negotiate being able to carry my two big bags, one containing sleeping bag and clothes, the other full of my weeks’ worth of food, along with my day pack:

 

Leaving the house just before 8am gave me plenty of time on clear roads to get up north of Auckland to Gulf Harbour where there was free parking to leave my car for the week. Much more relaxed and easier than Simon having to fight his way in to the City docks to drop me off and pick me up again.

The ferry to Tiritiri Matangi

I think it’s fair to say that I had the most luggage on board! But how many others were staying for a full week I wonder? The Ferry (or catamaran to be more precise) turned up right on time and I managed to stumble on with my belongings. 

It was only a 20-minute crossing to Tiritiri, so just enough time to inhale a banana for energy and check out the view.

Farewell to the mainland

Our first view of Tiritiri

Getting closer - The lighthouse and few surrounding buildings are the only ones on the island

Getting off the ferry I met with Sue the ranger and my co-volunteer for the week, Hilary, or Hilz as she’s more commonly known.  Thankfully, I just had to make it to the end of the pier with my bags where a truck waited with a trailer to carry everyone’s luggage up the steep hill to the lighthouse and visitor’s centre. Feeling a little lighter, it was time to partake in a guided walk to get to know the island. There was the choice between the shorter or longer walk – well, of course I went for the longer one!  And a good thing I did too…. Within an hour of touching the island’s hallowed ground I had seen little Blue Penguin, Robin, Whitehead, Stitchbird, Bellbird, some awesome forest (left).

North Island robin

Nectar-feeder - to top up the diet of these birds:

Bellbird (above) and Stitchbird (or hihi, below)

AND even lucked upon my first ever pair of Kokako:

Our guides were very happy in telling us how lucky we were to be seeing all of this in just one day! We didn’t cover that much distance, but the route took over three hours, just from stopping every few steps to gawp at another natural wonder!   

There were Tui singing everywhere like this chap (above) or hanging upside down to feed from the flowers

A kakariki - rare NZ endemic parrot

I had to speed up for the last section so that I wouldn’t be late for my 130pm bunkhouse induction with the ranger.  Hilary and I were given the run-down of the facilities and our expected duties and shown through to our dormitory consisting of 5 beds. Luckily, we are the only residents of the room for tonight at least, so we picked the bed we liked the look of and dumped our stuff in the general area.

Then it was over to the service area, out of bounds to the general visitors as this was the ‘staff only’ section.  We discussed our duties for the next couple of days and were then handed buckets containing a scrubbing brush, sieve, disinfectant and laminated instructions for one of our main tasks – cleaning and topping up the ten bird baths scattered around the southerly end of the island.  The first challenge was to find them all, after which we emptied scrubbed, sprayed, rinsed and filled them ten-times over to give the feathered residents a lovely clean place to drink and bathe.  They were positioned in good spots to sit and just wait to watch unsuspecting birds visit for their ablutions.  It took us a couple of hours to traipse around and complete this task, especially as we kept getting distracted by the wildlife. A particular highlight was being shown where a giant Wetapunga (below) was hiding in plain sight.   

This is the best photo of the wetapunga I could get with my phone - sorry! But hopefully you can see the body of what is the World's heaviest insect?!

Despite being a Kiwi native, Hilz had never seen one of these in the wild before so I felt extra-privileged to be able to see one and we were both very impressed with the gentleman who had managed to find it – we’re not quite sure how he spotted that!

Back at the bunkhouse I was exhausted having had a full day of fresh air and exercise but knew that much harder days were to come. I made myself one of my ‘not-so exciting but very light to carry’ pasta meals for dinner and socialised in the kitchen with the other occupants. Apart from Hilary and I, the only visitors in the bunkhouse that night were five elderly friends from a photography club in the northland who seemed highly competitive about who would get the best photo for their monthly club competition.  I offered up my cask of wine (clearly taken to buy people’s affection with!) but Hilz was the only taker. I also got the five crown playing cards out to try and get some group bonding going on, but no one was interested in that, the group were just happy to sit and chat about camera settings and all things avian.  I got my puzzle book out to keep me sane!  After today’s ferry departed at 330pm, that is it now until Wednesday morning – no other comings or goings so, with the ranger and her friend staying over, there are a total of nine of us to have the island completely to ourselves for 48 hours.  Bliss.

My first impressions of the island?  It’s beautiful to see the native plants, trees and wildlife and the birdsong is beautiful, but it is very manicured. Compared to the isolation and wildness of the Hunuas it is designed to be easily accessible for tourists, with large sections of boardwalk and even concrete paths in places to make walking around easy.  In fact, most of the paths are gravel and/or concrete or wooden boardwalk.  This has allayed my fears that my fitness or hiking abilities may not cut it this week.  I may even be able to stay on my feet for a change. 

Despite being keen to head out and try to find kiwi this week, the evening was blustery and cold which persuaded me to stay indoors instead. By about 930pm the camera club were saying their goodnights, so it seemed like time to call it a night. Rock ‘n roll!