New Zealand & Fiji

[lance]

Starbug,

Great pics. I loved the animal pics. Are those bison? Are there bison in New Zealand?

-LanceMan

[starbug]

I just realised I haven't answered a couple of questions in this thread.

Candygirl - they are indeed real glass bottles in the walls. It's cool because it gives the light a weird colourful quality inside... also it fits well with all the vinyards in the locality

Lance: they're bison, yeah. I'd seen Bison in Yellowstone but not that close up! They don't have bison in NZ other than in wildlife parks - interesting fact about NZ is that their only indigenous wildlife is birds and insects. Which is why there are so many flightless birds: they didn't need to fly to get themselves out of danger because there were no mammals to attack them. Everything else is introduced. Domestic dogs have ravaged the flightless bird population, as have the ubiquitous possum - a protected species in Australia but in NZ you can't kill enough of them. The guide horseriding told me that people positively drive cars at them in NZ... having seen the roadkill rates I believe it. They were introduced into NZ with the intention of bringing down the wild rabbit population (introduced itself), but instead of going after speedy rabbits, it's easier for the possum to eat the cumbersome and slow kiwi bird, so that's what they do. Obviously rabbits breed like nobody's business, but the humble kiwi lays its little eggs once a year or whatever, and most of them die within the first few days of natural causes. It's not good.

PS we didn't see any Weta, which I was disappointed about