The World of Zealandia!

This past week was filled with friends, games and a lot of walking. The education abroad network (TEAN), paid for us to take a trip to Zealandia Conservation Site. Its a Wildlife Sanctuary 10 minutes from downtown Wellington. Since New Zealand has no natural predators, its biggest threat are household pets (cats, dogs, mice, rats, and weasels). Ever since New Zealand was colonized in the 18th century, dozens of birds, lizards, and mammals have been going extinct because of invasive species. At Zealania you can see hundreds of native birds that are endangered, at home in their natural habitat.

It was a beautiful park with lots of hikes, lakes and streams.

There was a dam at the very top of the valley

and we even stumbled upon a suspension bridge with a pretty amazing view above all the trees

Unfortunately it started raining while we were there so we didn’t see as many birds as we would have liked, but the birds we did see were amazing and came so close to you that you could almost touch them.

The last thing we did was explore an old Weta cave. (a Weta is a really big, yet harmless insect) Inside the pitch-black cave we were able to see glow worms and hundreds of Wetas.

As we walked around we explored, adventured, and took in the world around us. We didn’t need nice weather to have a good time, we were able to do it all on our own.

The Zealandia sanctuary was amazing and I really appreciate places like this that exist in our world. Im glad i got to spend a small bit of my weekend and time in New Zealand learning about its awesome animals and wildlife.