WOW!!!

Well, as you surely remember, we spent the 19th in nelson.
Re-supply, re-fuel, re-lax.But after that, we left nelson, aiming for the glaciers.Yuval wanted to hike on the glacier the next day...
We drove there, and just before the glaciers there's a place called Okarito.If you recall, I spent the night before my glacier-walk there.
And my ride said you can sometime see kiwis there.
It was already around 23, so we decided to give it a chance.
It felt quite pathetic, driving through this road at 10 kph, seeing nothing, but it was exciting as well.
And then...
We saw...
No, not a kiwi - a possum...
And then 2 cars.
Maybe they saw a kiwi? We stopped, but they ignored us, so we drove away.
Slowly...
We finished the "kiwi zone", turned around, and slowly worked our way back.
Those cars were still there.
This time they pulled us over, and getting out they showed us, with red torches, a male kiwi freezing in the bushes!!!
We couldn't believe our luck!
A male kiwi!
We could only see his head and his funny beak, but still!!
And not "just a kiwi" - one of the rarest kind - "Okarito brown"!
Only ~250 left in this colony, the only one in the world...
Wow!
We were speechless.
And then, there was some noise, and they turned their lights, and we saw a female kiwi, on the road, approaching us...
She got to less than 0.5 m from Yuval! About a meter from me...
It was incredible!!
And then she went into the bushes, found the male and chased him around... Now we couldn't see them anymore, but we could definitely hear them...Wow!!
WOW!!
The next few days we spent driving to Te-Anau, meeting up with the two Floes, going to the Milford sound and relaxing before going on the Kepler trek - a famous New Zealand "great walk".
We ate very well, and Floe even taught me how to bake stuffed bread...I baked one with zucchini, onion and feta, and one with blue cheese and peanuts.I liked them both. The rest didn't appreciate the genius just as much...
On the 22nd Yuval and me went kayaking for a couple of hours in the famous Milford sound.It was a sunny day, and we could see all the peaks around - even the most shy ones... At some point the whole guided group (4 kayaks + the guide) got together, opened a sail, and let the wind take us...It was really fun!What a nice way to celebrate 3 months in NZ :)
The lesson of this week - you don't have to go to Stewart island to see kiwis...

and the relevant album...