I spent another few hours on the internet, we went to the supermarket where a scary cashier was being very possessive of her shopping trolley and drove to Waitomo.

On the way, we saw a red car driving by which did not seem to have a driver, causing Keiron to hiss (in Gollum voice) 'nasty little hobbitses'.

We stopped at Otorahanga for the Kiwi house and bird park. Most of the birds there have been brought in because they were injured, or have been bred in captivity, either way they could not survive in the wild. In the Kiwi House, night and day are reversed, as Kiwis are nocturnal animals. This way you can see them digging up the earth with their beaks and scurrying about busily.

The girl, Atu, was three years old and bigger than the male, Rod. Rod was pretty old, looked a bit scruffy and had cataract in both eyes. He was named after Rod Stewart because of the blonde locks near his eyes.

We had a look at the other birds (falcons, blue duck, kakas to name but a few) and the geckos. We walked through a big birdcage scarily similar to the cages in Jurassic Park. A notice read 'you may see mice running around the avery floor. They are not part of the exhibit'. But obviously they cannot put poison in the avery because they would kill their own birds...

We took off again and a bit later we arrived in Waitomo, where the top 10 park is very nice indeed. We had a sandwich and booked our trips for tomorrow. We also had a quick wander around the Museum of Caves.

Our car, which we've baptised Judy (Keiron thought it sounded suitably New Zealandish), has already racked up over 1000 km since we have her.