For your viewing pleasure... my first pukeko!
Last month, I picked up some Christmas cards with cartoon pukekos swimming. I had no idea that these are one of New Zealand's most recognized birds. I just liked that they were swimming and wanted to mail the cards to my old Salem State swim buddies.
The walk to Victory Beach took us past the Pyramids-a byproduct of an explosion that happened a long, long time ago.
Upon a closer look at Little Pyramid it's easy to see the similarity between these columnar stones and the ones which make up the Organ Pipes. There was a cave in Little Pyramid as well, but I assumed big hairy man-eating spiders were in there just waiting to pounce, so I skipped the exploration.
A Hooker's sea lion blocked this particular access point to Victory Beach.
So, it sounds weird that a bunch of dead crabs would be kind of cool, right? I couldn't help getting a kick out of the little guys, though. They had markings that looked like a smiley face!
For some reason, people that read my blog or look at my Facebook photos prefer my pictures of animals. Well, penguins in particular. Here's an Oyster Catcher... I guess most people would say it's not as cute as a penguin...probably because it doesn't waddle.
This last photo is kind of cool - these are the "footprints" of the sea lion in the photo above who was blocking the entry to the beach.
So, tomorrow I'm celebrating New Years Eve at a low-key party and then on New Years Day we (Chris, Daniel, Johanna and I) are off to Monowai! We'll drive up the first day to camp at the start of the track. Then we'll hike for three solid days and head out on the fourth day. Check back here in a week for the photos!
