New Zealand – Day 8 – Wednesday, March 1st, 2017

Still +26 and mostly clear.

We continue our southward journey towards Opononi, boarding a ferry for a short portage to continue the drive to our destination, encountering roosters and goats along the way.

The highlights of this leg had to be the wild roosters and the grass-eating goats once at the hotel.

First the roosters, we met these guys just pecking away at a roadside turn out.  We saw them along the roadside earlier but couldn’t figure it out. Wild roosters? Apparently, they are the outcasts of people who wanted hens and went home with roosters. How obvious? What is that on their head a toque? So now they have a problem here with tons being left to the wild. But these guys are good-looking, check out the photos for the best in show.

Next up is the ferry.  Not too much to cover here as the ferry was on time and whoops just had to back up to pick up one more car who was a few minutes late.

The next part of this leg was uneventful but the scenery continued to impress, too bad that water was too cold to do anything with other than look at.

Our arrival at the hotel revealed a number of goats tied up with a rope about 30 feet long.  The rope was tied to a steel stake so the goat could roam in a circle of 60 feet in diameter.  Each goat had an area to work on.  Their job was to eat the grass in that circle and boy they took their job seriously clearing that circle better than any lawn mower and only with the environmentally safe exhaust.

We had a beautiful view of the harbour from our front deck.  Enjoyed visiting with the couple in the unit next to us.  They are from Drumheller, AB.