Amazing, our 2 and 1/2 month expedition is drawing to a close.  Sunday afternoon here and we are relaxing after two days on an even smaller island, Tiritiri Matangi, north of Aukland.  We spent one night in the bunkhouse there with researchers, volunteers, and other tourists like us.  Tiritiri is lovely and “predator free” and so hosts kiwi, takahe, and various other strange and lovely birds.  In 1980 it was a desolate pasture with rats and other vermin.  Today it is 80% forested and is the place most rich in native wildlife.

If it is Wednesday, we must be on the volcano.  This past week has truly been a tour with mostly two night stands across the North Island of New Zealand.  All good, we landed in Auckland with the brand new downtown convention center burning down.  It took days.  We had arrived late and missed our visit at high tide to the world class shorebird roost at Miranda on Thames.  We stopped there the next morning at low tide to find the sandpipers scattered far out in the shallows before continuing on to Rotorua with its mud pots, thermal pools, and fragrance of sulfur.

Australia was great but too dry.  Now in the green green land of South Island, New Zealand.  Pastures full of sheep and beef.  Snow covered mountains to the west, glacial lakes all about.  Gives one a burst of energy toward the end of a long pilgrimage.  

Yesterday we made the long and harrowing drive over and through the mountains to the dock on the fiord.  The boat took us to the sea past mile high rocks sticking up out of the water.  Wow and more wow!  Saw penguins too, Fiordland Crested Penguins to be precise.  

We have left the tablelands of the Canberra region.  Saw the national museum and the amazing botanical gardens.  Found the New Holland Honeyeater too.  Our camping has gone well even if we woke up to frost on two mornings.  Not having a “dingy” I have had to drive us about in the caravan.  Exciting.  

We finished our whirlwind visit to Sydney and caught an Uber ride to the RV rental shop where I was briefed and given the keys.  Keep left they say, but my problem is keeping right in the lane.  Is tough but I’m getting better.  Enjoyed a last day in Sydney, Miranda actually, on the shore of Botany Bay.  Lovely water, today urban on the inside, but the shore is parkland.  

This land is old or new, depending upon how you look at it.  We arrived here some 40-60 thousand years ago.  Science should be able to define it better than that.  It is still at work.  We did not arrive in America until 12-14 thousand years ago.  Ditto.  So, Australians like to say the occupation has been longer here.  But, there is really no structure on the continent that is earlier than 19th Century.  Everything is new.

Arrived Sydney a few days ago to begin acting more like a tourist and less like a bushman.  We changed into casual clothes from field clothing for the flight south.  The heavy fabric felt so strange.  Our behavior has not changed so much; we walk about, but here each morning begins with a train ride into the heart of town.  Our lodging is in the Waterloo District south of downtown and the harbor.  

We left the plateau with its chilly nights for a few days of truly tropical climate before leaving for Sydney.  Yesterday drove south along the coast past banana orchards and sugar fields.  Stopped at lovely and deserted beaches where breakers lapped against coconut palms.  Found more Cassowary and heard our last Bird-of-Paradise (Victoria’s Riflebird).  

Well mates, we’re on the Atherton Plateau.  Warm in the day, cool at night.  Rainforest on the slope to the coast, progressively drier ground to the west.  Here seems a bit like California with agriculture and water being what people talk about.  They grow a lot of sugar and other things.  Today we had lunch at a coffee factory.  Day before we birded on a tea farm.

 Yesterday, we took a boat ride on the DAintree River and then took the ferry across so we could tour to Cape Tribulation.  All good fun.  On the river we were overjoyed to see a Jabaroo and Spotted Whistling Ducks, but most of the dozen passengers were there to see the “salties.”  We did not see these at first, but they were on the bank during our return after the sun had come up.  Very toothy.  No swimming in the DAintree.