Rotoroa

Rotorua is a small town 150 miles south east of Auckland that is famous for its geothermal activity.  If you want to see bubbling mud pools, geysers and a lot of steam, and you happen to be in New Zealand, this is the place to visit… as we did back in 2006.

Rotoroa, on the other hand, is a small island 25 miles west of Auckland.  If you want to see rare birds and some very spectacular scenery, this is one of a handful of islands accessible as a day trip from Auckland that you might consider visiting.  With today being our last full day in New Zealand, we decided to give ourselves one last (however feint) chance of seeing a kiwi by doing precisely that.

As we discovered during our brief visit to the island’s tiny museum, Rotoroa has a very interesting history:

For 100 years, the island was leased to the Salvation Army who provided rehabilitation (or “physical and spiritual care” as they preferred to call it) to New Zealanders with an addiction to drugs or alcohol.  The ‘Certified Inebriates’ Home’ opened in 1911, and by the time of its closure in 2005, had seen over 12,000 admissions.  In some cases, a stay on the island was a criminal sentence, whilst some residents made the choice to “check in” to Rotoroa.

Of course, there was no alcohol on the island, and its distance from any significant settlement acted as a major deterrent to anyone considering escape!  People did make a run from it from time to time, but they were usually rounded up on one of the neighbouring islands.

The rehabilitation programme provided to residents followed the same 12-step programme as used to this day by Alcoholics Anonymous groups.

A short walk from the ferry wharf is the “centre” of Rotoroa where some of the administrative buildings used by the Salvation Army can still be found.  There is a small jail, a school house, an abattoir and a church.

After their 100-year lease expired in 2005, the Salvation Army moved back to Auckland city.  In 2008, the Rotoroa Island Trust was formed with the goal of establishing a wildlife sanctuary on the island.  After four years, aerial poison drops had successfully eradicated rats and mice and Rotoroa was declared pest-free.  Conservationists felled many of the pine trees on the island and began reintroducing various native plant and wildlife species, a programme which continues to this day…

Of course, maintaining the pest-free status of the island is a major priority.  Before we boarded the ferry to Rotoroa, we received a biosecurity “briefing” and were asked to brush our shoes to avoid inadvertently bringing alien seeds or other organisms to the island.  After the 75-minute ferry crossing, we were met by two wardens who – after a brief welcome – carried out a biosecurity inspection of all bags and footwear!

Having satisfied the warden that we really didn’t have any stowaway rats in our lunch pack, we were invited to join a guided walk with one of the employees of Auckland Zoo who was working on the island that day.  Although the day’s ferry tickets were quite expensive (about £45 per person for the 2.5 hour round-trip sailing), we didn’t pay another cent all day, so to have more than an hour of a guide’s time was very unexpected and very much appreciated.

The first stop on our guided walk was to meet one of the island’s two resident pairs of takahē.  Anyone who’s read Kit’s account of our adventures on Milford Sound will know that takahē is an incredibly rare species of large, flightless bird that was thought to be extinct until the 1940s.  There is now a highly elaborate breeding and reintroduction programme in place across New Zealand, which has resulted in a current “wild” population of 270 takahē.

All of Rotoroa’s takahē have a tracking device, and our guide showed us how a piece of kit that looks remarkably like a fold-away television arial can be used to locate them, wherever they might be on the island.  Fortunately for us, a pair of takahē, and their recently-hatched chick, had been hanging out by the church just over the hill, and soon came bounding down the hill to meet us.

Next, our guide introduced us to some of the nesting boxes that have been used – with varying degrees of success – on the island.  Not surprisingly, different sizes and designs of nesting box suit different species.

Continuing our tour, we walked east to Ladies’ Bay, one of three major beaches on the island.  Here we saw New Zealand Dotterel.  These small birds are beautifully camouflaged when they are walk on sand, and as a result, are often stepped on.  There are less than 2,000 left in the wild, which makes them more endangered than some types of kiwi.

Next, we headed to the central “dam”, one of three small lakes on the island used to provide wetland environments to native species such as Pāteke.

From the banks of this dam, another critically endangered bird, the Tieke (or Saddleback) can sometimes be seen.  Using her iPhone, our guide played a sound similar to the call of this bird, and just a few moments later, several of them – obviously very curious – landed in the tree above our heads!!

At the far side of the dam, we continued north and made our final stop of the tour at the spot that is used whenever new kiwi are introduced into the “wild” on Rotoroa.  With young kiwi being particularly vulnerable to attack, an extensive conservation programme is underway across New Zealand, with some of the eggs laid by wild kiwi taken and hatched in a protected environment.  Young kiwi are then introduced into pest-free locations such as Rotoroa where they can grow to full-size in relative safety.  Later, these birds are captured and returned to the location from which their egg was originally taken.

Whilst here, our guide introduced us to a primitive yet highly effective device that is used for monitoring all sorts of species on the island.  It’s a tunnel with bait half way along it, a non-toxic ink pad at one end, and some paper at the other.  By reviewing the footprints that are made on the paper, conservationists learn more about what species are thriving on the island.

For the remainder of the day, we had the island almost to ourselves.  Though we had been joined by more than 30 other tourists on the ferry that morning, most stayed on board when we reached Rotoroa because the service also makes a stop at the Coromandel Peninsula, further east.  In fact, we were sharing the island with a skeleton staff, and just six other visitors!

North Tower is the highest point on Rotoroa, and from here we got some fantastic views both out to sea and back down the full length of the island.

After fully exploring the north half of the island, we headed south to Mai Mai Bay, which seemed like a good lunch spot.  We had been warned during the briefing earlier that morning that there are many weka (also known as Maori hen) on the island, and that these can be mischievous, stealing lunch, sunglasses or really anything they can get their beaks on.  We had been watching weka all day, but they’d rarely paid much attention to us, but while we were eating lunch, a particularly daring weka made it very clear that he was interested in dining with us.  Not that we minded, as it provided a great photo opportunity!

After lunch, we set off to explore the southern half of the island.  Though not as tall as North Tower, South Tower has even more spectacular scenery.  This is also home to the Chris Booth Sculpture, a giant art installation made entirely from local rock.

On the south east coast of the island we encountered some gannets.  Well… not really.  Realistic-looking plastic gannets were glued to the cliff in an attempt to attract this species to the island.  We didn’t get a chance to ask why this was considered to be a worthwhile endeavor – after seeing a couple of thousand gannets at Muriwai just 24 hours earlier (during our wine tasting day), this is obviously not an endangered bird, so presumably there is a bio-diversity objective.

Just before heading back to the wharf for our ferry back to Auckland, we paid a visit to Men’s Beach.  When the island was still a rehabilitation centre for drug users and alcoholics, male residents would swim at this beach while Ladies Bay was used by… well, ladies!  Here, we made our final bird spotting of the day – a family of four oyster catchers, who seemed very put out to have been disturbed by us, but not quite enough to actually fly away!

After spending all day on Rotoroa in the very strong sunshine, we were ready for a sit down by the time we made it back to the ferry wharf.  Once again, we have failed to spot a kiwi, but our very close encounter with the takahē will be one of our lasting memories of New Zealand, and it really was a pleasure having such a beautiful island almost to ourselves for the day!