Rotoiti

The sun graced us with it's presence on the last day of school for Term 3. Some of us arrived in cars, other's by 5 star coach! Lake Rotoiti was as beautiful as ever with the clear day allowing us to spot Room 1 high  up on Mount Robert.







After we ate our morning tea and spotted eels from the jetty we headed into the forest accompanied by our DOC guide, Pita. Pita told us about the work she and her team do around the lake controlling pests such as rats, stokes, feral cats and wasps.

Walking along the Honey Dew Track it was obvious why the wasps find it such an appealing place to live. The Beech trees were dripping with honey dew and as I tried to stop the kids from licking the whole tree clean of the sweet sticky bug poo it dawned on me that I had introduced a new pest to the area....Room 4 and 5!

You see, honey dew is an important food source of native birds in the area and with so many wasps
 (and Ngatimoti School children) stripping the trees of this rich food source it doesn't leave much left for the birds to survive on.

The track continued weaving it's way through the forest. A few compulsory quiet moments along the way allowed us to hear some of the bird song from Tui, Bellbirds and Silver Eye. A bright purple mushroom was spotted and captured by our group's photographer James England. The sharp eyed children of our group caught a glimpse of a Kaka, one of our  native parrots tearing bark from off the trees and flashing us with the bright red feathers from the underside of it's wing.


Tired and satisfied we reach the lake were we devoured our sandwiches before being whisked back to school so we could begin our holidays.