Exploring Rotorua 31 January 2021

NZ native falcon climbing onto my bare arm

Today is a rest day in Rotorua after five days of tramping and the morning was spent relaxing and taking it super easy while I worked on my blog and did lots of reading.

Later in the morning we headed out to Wingspan where a very cool and special event happened!

I have wanted to visit Wingspan the home of NZ’s bird of prey the New Zealand falcon for a while. The visit started out well with a good description on the NZ falcon which I don’t believe I have ever really seen before and then only three kids were offered the opportunity to have the falcon on their arm and Robin was the first, and he was brave, he put the leather glove on and then he got to hold the rare NZ falcon – so special – but it’s soon going to get even better!

They then brought out a NZ Barn Owl, not many people know that NZ has a new native bird of prey which flew here on its own all the way from Australia and is now breading only in the last few years. I have never seen a barn-own before – very cool.

After the display we headed to the gift shop before heading back to where they were practicing with a young four month old female falcon. They were offering some adults a chance to hold the bird and even through I was keen I was not being noticed so ohh well.

Then Star the NZ falcon came and landed right beside my hand and started pecking at it! I put my arm down to see what would happen, and I so privileged as this young NZ Falcon then climbed up onto my arm – I was a tad nervous as I didn’t any protection on but she was actually super gentle on my arm with those super sharp talons of hers.

It is quite hard to explain how cool it is to have a NZ falcon casually sitting on my bare arm looking at me. Then she jumped off and headed over to Robin who so excited to have the bird beside him but was not keen to have her on his bare arm. She kept trying to climb onto Robin – she clearly liked him.

Then she climbed up beside Julianne and started climbing up her arm and actually climbed all the way up to Julianne’s shoulder! Unfortunately Julianne had the camera so there are no photos.

Star then came back down and started climbing all over Robin again. While all this was happening the falcanor kept trying to get Star to fly back to her but she just was not interested and just completely ignored her while exploring us. I expect all the other people in the audience were so jealous.

Eventually I got Star to climb up onto my arm and turned around so Star was facing the falconour clearly and she flew back to her.

What an amazing experience, one of the coolest things ever! And what a great way to spend the day. It was then back to the backpackers for a late lunch – left overs from the lovely meal last night from the Fainting Goat.

We then headed out to the Redwoods Treewalk, I didn’t realise that a large number of the world’s largest tree Redwood’s are in Rotorua. And not only that but they have built the largest tree walk in the world at 700 meters long across 28 swing bridges – yes lots of swing bridges – how cool is that!

Tāne Mahuta NZ’s largest karui tree which we all know is 51 meters high, whereas the tallest Redwood tree is a massive 75 meters high and growing.

Julianne’s tender stomach does not like motion sickness so she was not keen on swing bridges so she rested below while Robin and I headed up into the trees.

I enjoy heights anyway, and being able to walk around up to 40 meters high was such a delight and being able to experience it with Robin made it even better. All the bridges and platorms are attached to the trees by ropes and such so there is no damage to the trees and can be loosened as the trees grow which is very clever.

It was also quite strange to look down on the smaller NZ native trees like punga’s while walking around the treewalk, I highly recommend the Redwoods Treewalk.

After spending time going around the treewalk and back on the ground even my stomach felt a bit tender – wow.

The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing in the room before heading back to the fainting goat for another meal.

Then we went back to the Redwoods, as they have a night time walk as well with all these lights hung though the trees. I couldn’t afford to do the walk again, plus I discovered the queue was massive at over an hour long but it was great just to walk below along the ground with the lights and shadows of the massive Redwood trees above.

The following morning was spent throwing everything in the car for the trip back to Auckland and normal life.

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Exploring Rotorua 31 January 2021