Friday 24th April

Today we left Masterton at 0930 and headed for Napier. Not far along Highway 2 we came to the Mount Bruce Wildlife Reserve which had been recommended to us. We stopped there for coffee and took it out onto the deck which overlooked a Takahe (pronounced tack-a-hay) enclosure - a very rare and almost extinct native New Zealand bird. The numbers have now increased to 225 and we were lucky enough to see two of them. They are about the size of a large chicken and were a beautiful blue/green colour with red legs. It was thought they were extinct until a couple were rediscovered in the 1940’s. I felt very privileged to see them.


The journey to Napier was around 230km and it was my turn to do most of the driving today. Driving is very easy here as the roads are usually very quiet outside towns.
We arrived at the Gardner Court Motel , where we checked in for 2 nights, around 3.30 after a leisurely drive which included a stop for lunch at Waipukurau.