2-wheeled quest to spot elusive kiwi goes south The kiwi, being a fat and flightless bird, can’t go too far or too fast. [...] it figures that, if you roam the New Zealand countryside on a bicycle for two weeks, you’d stand a decent chance of running into one. The long-beaked standard-bearer of New Zealand — the bird with the body of a bowling ball — is on T-shirts, coffee mugs, candy bars, postage stamps. A likeness of a kiwi graces New Zealand’s dollar coin, larger than the likeness of long-beaked Queen Elizabeth on the flip side. “Good luck, mate,” said the fellow in the tourist office. According to the government, the country has 30 million sheep and 5 million people. Besides chickens, there were gulls, sparrows, hawks and other birds that weren’t kiwis. There was no shortage of a pesky New Zealand parrot called a kea that was said to enjoy pecking apart bike saddles of cyclists who leave their bikes unattended outside cafes. A bike splits the difference, and is a great way to work off a steak-and-kidney pie, assuming you actually manage to get one down. The search for the kiwi, like any grail quest, was beginning to take on mythic proportions. The kiwi-free road along the west coast hugs the cliffs above the Tasman Sea, much as Highway 1 hugs the cliffs of Monterey County. With Highway 1 out of action for a while, because of the condemned bridge at Big Sur, motorists seeking to hug cliffs might very well have to venture to New Zealand. New Zealand may not be awash in kiwis, but it is drowning in kiwi nature centers. All over New Zealand are indoor kiwi aviaries where kiwis are on display for tourists inside dark rooms. The dark rooms are designed to trick the poor birds into thinking that the aviary’s daytime operating hours are the middle of the night. Another tourist, Kevin, who had paid to see a kiwi, said his bird was hiding inside its hutch, all but invisible. The kiwi was intent on performing the kiwi equivalent of a Greta Garbo imitation. Other discoveries are the peanut slab candy bar, the fjords of Milford Sound, a flavor of ice cream called hokey pokey (vanilla with bits of honey crunch), hard apple cider on tap, friendly folks, spooky glow worms, preposterous New Zealand TV game shows and a budget hotel in Christchurch that used to be the city jail. New Zealand, everyone knows, is the place that served as the backdrop for the Lord of the Rings movies of nearly two decades ago. The quest to find the inscrutable, legendary kiwi courtesy of a bicycle turns out to be much the same as the quest to dispose of the inscrutable, legendary ring courtesy of a movie theater. Both involve long stretches of spectacular scenery viewed from uncomfortable seats. Both take you into uncharted territory full of unlikely characters. When it’s time to go home, from the movie theater or from the airport, it turns out that the journey was the point of the exercise.
2-wheeled Quest To Spot Elusive Kiwi Goes South
By Steve Rubenstein, San Francisco Chronicle: Travel
Mon, 03/27/2017 - 8:06am
Topics: t-shirts queen elizabeth good tasman sea monterey county with highway big sur kevin greta garbo milford sound christchurch rings zealand a highway 2-wheeled quest to spot elusive quest to spot elusive kiwi spot elusive kiwi goes south kiwis cliffs bird tourist million bicycle birds rooms likeness courtesy bike movie hugs turns
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