My Final Week (and last waterfall... maybe)

After taking an inland flight from Christchurch to Auckland, I took the bus later that same day out of the city (there is no way I'm spending my last week in Auckie) headed northbound. With one German girl and French guy, we took off towards Whangarei, a place I had passed through but never explored.

It's a good thing I did, because we were in for two lovely days:

We took a bus to one of New Zealand's rather special waterfalls and as it turned out these particular falls were very impressive.

From above

From below

A loop track allowed us to see the Whangarei Falls from every possible angle. One may even climb behind the falls, but we forgot to do that. Whoops.

Part of the track was called a Canopy Walk, meaning you are actually walking off the ground, on a walkway in the treetops.

After that we visited a volunteer bird sanctuary and got to meet Sparky, the one-legged Kiwi.

Now usually you have to pay quite a bit of money to even go near a Kiwi bird, but since this was not a government-owned organisation but an independant one they were not required to meet certain safety regulations and standards... meaning we could do something not many people get to do:

Touch a Kiwi!

After Sparky we met this little guy, only six months old (and very soft.)

And we also met a New Zealand Hawk with the funniest expression I've ever seen on a bird.