New Zealand - the lost bits

We were a little rushed on the last blog post . . . prepaid Internet connections always have a very annoying timer ticking away while you are busy trying to be fun to read. So, in our rush, we missed a few bits about New Zealand, like the wildlife. Which they don't have any of. See, when the Europeans arrived, New Zealand had no land animals other than a few types of bats. Sure there were sea lions and otters, but no raccoons, porcupines, skunks or bears, the kinds of things we worry about when we are camping in Canada. It was really jarring for us to watch Kiwi campers leaving their food about and not packing everything up at night to keep the animals out. I explained to some of them (all google-eyed) that when we camp for real, we don't wear the same clothes to bed that we wear when we are cooking. And you need a long rope to tie your food bag up in a tree. But New Zealand does have a wide variety of bird life, so all of our walks involved a lot of pausing to listen to bird songs . . . bird-watching is such a pain, you hardly ever see the smaller ones with the most exciting bird calls. But our last night of rural camping remains a highlight because of a single bellbird. You see, these birds are supposed to have a remarkable call like a bell, but we could never be sure if we were hearing one. Until we camped in a remote Department of Conservation site off a gravel road near Fairlee. It was a rainy, cold night and our van Syd was the only vehicle there. While we were cooking up pasta under a big sheltering tree, we heard the sound of a blacksmith's anvil. Now this was weird because we were nowhere near anyone, much less a blacksmith, but we supposed it might be from a nearby farm. But that didn't seem right, this was a single repeated CLINK like a hammer hitting an anvil, but not from very far away. We walked towards the sound and it seemed to be quite close overhead. Then we heard slight variations in the CLINK sound and it dawned on us . . . now THAT'S a bellbird. And there were no other campers to tell. One other item . . . dining. Dining was an odd affair for us in New Zealand. We were kind of camping, so there was a lot of campfood . . . dried pasta mixes with tuna or veggies added after the cooking, soup mixes (ditto), cheese and pickle sandwiches ("pickle" is more like a chutney; we bought rhubarb raisin pickle and tomato clove pickle from a nice old Kiwi couple at Jack's Blowhole), peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, muesli breakfasts and occasionally some sausages or meat that had to be bought and eaten in the same day because Syd the van's plastic food cooler was so small. (I really should post a picture of Syd.) But every now and then we ate out, and since most of our dining on the road was low-end, we splurged at the restaurants. In particular, in Kinloch, we stayed at a Department of Conservation campsite for $14 a night but ate at a lodge next door where our bill for the night was $188. That's Kiwi dollars, but still. Spectacular food and drink in a superb setting. If it wasn't for the rain . . .