Wellington and Kapiti Island November 26

It's Thanksgiving Day here.
We had a really great day near Wellington, New Zealand today. Wellington is the capitol of New Zealand, but we chose not to visit the town in favor of an excursion to a nature reserve here in New Zealand. We took a bus about 45 minutes up the coast and then boated over to reserve on Kapiti Island. Wait 'til you see the boat, it was a trip all by itself !!  When you board the thing it is still on a boat trailer and then a truck backs the trailer into the surf, and the boat takes off. On the island, the driver just revs the thing and beaches the boat so everyone can get off. Whatever happened to docks, I'm wondering?!!
 
The nature reserve was fascinating! The woman who gave us a tour of part of the island was a descendent of the original Maori natives in New Zealand and she has lived on the island much of her life. She had some great stories about the island and how it has changed over the course of her 60 or 70 years there. She took great pride in trying to show us all the natural flora and birds. There is a bird called a takahe that is kind of a large flightless New Zealand parrot. There are only about 17 nesting pairs of takahes in all the world and thirteen of these pairs are on Kapiti Island. She spent a great deal of time chucking and imitating their cry so that one of these rare fellows would show itself. We hiked for about 2 hours before lunch and while we saw many interesting birds and plants, the takahes remained elusive. We finally went back to the "lodge" (really more like a big cabin) for lunch and shortly after listening to a Maori native welcome and song, out pops a takahe and marches across the lawn. Wait until you see the photos! when we can post them on the website. My trusty photographer, Phil, has managed to capture it all. The weather cooperated fantastically and we didn't get back to the ship until almost 5 pm. It was really a memorable day!
 
We pulled out of port at 6 pm and are leaving New Zealand's north island. We should arrive at Christchurch at 7 am tomorrow on the south island.