Day 19: Christchurch Redux

Yesterday, we made the drive back over Arthur's Pass to Christchurch, and we're taking the day today to rest up in preparation for our long day of travel to Bali tomorrow, and to fit in everything that we didn't catch in Christchurch the last time.

So far, this has mainly consisted of walking around in the beautiful sunny weather, getting a cheap haircut from a woman wearing scary amounts of lipstick, and visiting the tiny aquarium right in the town center.

In spite of its diminutive size, the aquarium was actually pretty neat, since it features only animals native to NZ. After 2 weeks in NZ, we finally saw some kiwis in the kiwi room today. Little known fact: kiwi eggs are the 3rd largest of any bird, after ostriches, and another one that I can't remember. And since the egg is so big, and the shell is so hard, the kiwi chick can't just peck its way out. Instead, it pecks and pecks until it makes a little tiny hole, and then it kicks the shell open with its powerful legs. The whole process can take a few days.

Since kiwis are nocturnal animals, they keep them in a very dark room, so you can just barely make them out, but one of the 2 kiwis resident at the aquarium spent a lot of time bobbing back and forth right in front of us, which was cool. Intermittently, he'd bob his way back into a dark corner, and make a strange scraping noise. After we got out, K asked the guide fellow what the kiwi was doing back there. The guide got all shifty, and said something about how he was sharpening his beak, or maybe trying to get the attention of the other kiwi, but we're thinking that he was probably trying to make a small hole so that he could kick his way out with his powerful legs...