Kiwis & Tigers...not together

Today the kick-ass summer Kiwi roadtrip finally began for Todd and I.  We flew from Dunedin to Auckland and met up with Vanessa, Graham, Elena, and her friend from the States, Lorena who were already there.  After getting settled at our backpackers, City Garden Lodge, Todd, Elena, Lorena (say that 10 times fast...Elena, Lorena, Elena, Lorena, Elena, Lorena) and I took the bus to the Auckland Zoo.  Even though we're not huge zoo people, we thought it might be a good way to spend the afternoon, and...IT WAS AMAZING!!!

Right at the beginning, you walk into the Kiwi & Tuatara House.

Kiwis are (obviously) NZ's iconic bird, and tuataras are their dinosauric-looking lizard of note.  The kiwi part of the house is dark, because these flightless wonders are nocturnal.  We could see on a closed-circuit camera that one was in a box hidden somewhere on the Kiwi House premises, and thankfully, it came out of the box and right up to the window, so we could take some non-flash and hence blurry pictures of it.  

These crazy birds about bigger than chickens and roosters with curved beaks about the length of a pen.  Just outside Night of the Living Kiwi, the tuatara was lying in plain sight.  Thank you very much, ugly lizard.

The next exhibit over was the tiger, and the second we turned the corner into the viewing area, I almost screamed, because this HUGE ASS TIGER was right on the other side of the glass (the thick glass) eating dinner.  I have never been this close to a tiger at any zoo (or in the wild), and it was pretty amazing.  I don't know if they pay these animals, but this tiger stayed nice and close to the glass for about 10 minutes and did lots of interesting things.

After actually seeing a kiwi and having this up close and personal encounter with the tiger and , we immediately proclaimed the Auckland Zoo a success and well worth the $20 entry fee.  The rest of the zoo was very good as well.  The quick recap is that spider monkeys are hilarious, love to groom each other (and I mean love it, anywhere and everywhere), and their tails are pretty incredible, cheetahs blend in with their platform, sea lions are uber-smelly, and giraffes are pretty tall.