Up around 8:30am and we get straight to breakfast: sausage butties ????

The place we’re staying in uses a water tank so we make sure to have brief showers before heading out for the day

First stop is to Whangarei Falls – it’s within a park with various walking paths and we choose to do the Falls Loop Track

You get nice views from all angles as well as being able to enjoy the wildlife (see the featured image)

We then get hungry so head over to Subway to grab a footlong buffalo chicken sub to share and drive to the next attraction

Whangarei Quarry Gardens was a quarry site which has now been rejuvenated into public gardens; we enter after giving a donation

This Russell Road Quarry Site began mining stone in about 1940 and has a body of water within it now which is supplied by the local Pukenui Forest

We wander most of the paths, as well as going up to the lookout, before moving onto the next attraction

Kiwi North hosts a Museum, Kiwi House and Heritage Park – of course, we get straight to our priority for visiting; on the way to the kiwi house, they have a few other rare and native species of geckos and skinks

The area for the kiwi is dark, which suits their natural habitat, and it doesn’t take long to notice the rustling of one of them – it’s so dark there’s no way to take photos

• We learn that their closest relatives are Australian ratites, such as Cassowaries and Emus!
• Their eggs are almost comparable to their own fully grown size and they’re born fully feathered with eyes open so they’re ready to go
• They have a yolk sack attached to them which feeds them for the first seven days where they have to sort their own food
• The feathers they have are more like hair and even though they’re small, they do technically have wings

We exit the kiwi house to have a look around the museum of New Zealand heritage which includes artifacts, memorabilia and recreations of the past

There’s some explanation about a lost continent called Zealandia: in the breaking up of the supercontinent, Gondwana, the Tasman Sea flooded and caused this landmass to cool and sink into the Pacific with the highest points, New Caledonia and New Zealand, to just be above the surface

Also, there’s an actively tracking seismometer which we play with a bit

The rest of Kiwi North hosts a heritage park with buildings of interest to New Zealand’s history that have been donated, including a women’s prison block, a miniature train line and a tiny chapel

We make our way to the car but notice there’s a large congregation of birds up a little hill to where a bird recovery centre is – a swamp hen comes over and tries to nip Daisy’s toes, as she has her sliders on ????

One of the owners, Robert, is kind enough to show us around a bit and take us behind the scenes – there’s an aviary behind the main building which is home to recovering birds, including New Zealand Pigeons (which are huge!), a Hawk, a couple Tuis as well as another special resident

Sparky is a North Island brown kiwi which has lived in captivity for all his life, as he was caught in a rabbit trap and brought to Robert; he can’t be rehabilitated as he lost his leg to the trap so has been in Robert’s care for 17 years

He’s quite happy to have a play in the dirt hunting for worms while we chat to Robert about him and what Robert does here

After, he takes us to the information and education centre he has which is full of pictures and taxidermied birds; he explains some of the animals he’s had the pleasure of helping in his career, including a few albatross, little penguins, moreporks (an owl, not a misspelling), a boa and even a tuatara

The latter is a very special sort of lizard, which is the only of its kind and segment of reptile which actually existed when the dinosaurs were around!

As it gets late, we bid Robert and his sanctuary farewell and head to Jimmy Jack’s Rib Shack & Craft Bar for some dinner

A slab of ribs with wedges, a burger with chips, a “handle” (big) tiger beer and a happy hour glass of wine

We sort out a sort of plan as well as where we expect to stay for the next couple days and then make our way home for bed