The other day must have been a record for the number of dead animals Swathi and I saw. We went to 90-Mile Beach and I guess with the high and low-tide a lot of animals get swept onto the beach and stranded so they die there. The variety was kind of interesting, so here's a run-down of all the wildlife we saw that day:
-Various possums on the road: Numerous. We've seen a lot of possums pasted on the road but today we actually saw a bird picking at one.
-Fish: Numerous. It was interesting; when we first got onto the beach you could see fish skeletons embedded in the sand like they'd decayed and been there for a while. They were in various stages of decay but some were there much longer than the others. There was a whole bunch of fish only on the first stretch of the beach and then you didn't see any at all.
-Puffer fish: At least 5. I've never seen a live puffer fish in nature, so it was quite another thing to get to a stretch of beach where you could see numerous dead puffer fish. Our hosts were even generous enough to drive right up to one so we could get a better look.
-Seal(?): 1. This may be the biggest dead animal I've ever seen in real life. We saw a large, white and black mass on the beach and I knew it couldn't be a large piece of driftwood this time. I think it was a seal, but from its decay, it's really hard to say since I'm no expert. Whatever it was, the nature-challenged part of me wondered why it couldn't use its flippers to scurry back to sea.
-Seagull(?): 1. I put a question mark because I can't be sure. There were lots of clumps of seaweed on the beach and one of them had a white, feathery mass tangled in it so perhaps it's safe to assume it's a seagull.
Pictures would definitely illustrate this post better, but I didn't take any because I thought that would be kind of strange and morbid. Although, I do kind of regret not taking a picture of the puffer fish. I think if I got down to the ground I could've gotten an interesting picture of its peeled back lips and empty eyes.
Anyway, I've still been having a good time here in New Zealand. The land is so open and sometimes everywhere you look, you're surrounded by green pastures. I don't know if it's the openness, but the clouds here seem to be lower to the ground. It's almost magical! Also, with nothing to obscure the sky (where we are most buildings are 1 story and some areas have just a house here and there) and the lack of lights at night (no lights on the freeways, most businesses close at 6-ish), you can see so many stars at night it's crazy! The last couple nights when we've had to drive home in the evenings I keep looking up at the sky in disbelief at how many stars I can see. I definitely can't get that back home because all the lights drown out most of the stars. With all this nature around, sometimes it feels like you're away from the rest of the world and it's quite nice.
As an update on how I've been doing in completing my shopping list from a previous post, today I'll be continuing my quest for those penguin waffle makers. Since I don't listen to the Flight of the Conchords' latest album a lot, I decided not to get their previous two when I was in Auckland yesterday. I haven't seen any Olympics stuff and I checked out a few appliance stores/departments but to no avail. I just got back from a store that sells Sunbeam appliances but they stopped selling the waffle makers a while ago. So close, yet so far!
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