Norsewood and Mount Bruce Wildlife Centre (New Zealand Part 20)

We drove from Hastings to Wellington via Highway 2. Our first overnight stay and stop was in Norsewood, north of Dannevirke.

You can already tell by the name the origin countries of most immigrants who settled here. Scandinavian immigrants were brought to this area to clear forests and establish settlements.

Norsewood is even more committed to its Norwegian heritage with its small pioneer museum, which we visited. The village has quite a few trolls and also a typical wooden boat from the homeland.

The streets are named after Norwegian kings and legendary heroes - but we were a little puzzled about the cardinal direction indicators:

Our second stop before Wellington was the Mt Bruce National Wildlife Centre, which houses the world's largest collection of New Zealand birds.

The path through the park was beautifully laid out and a short hike through the forest. We saw several Tuis on a meadow, which are the largest nectar-drinking birds in New Zealand.

Of course, the Kiwis in the nocturnal house couldn't be missing. Here you can admire the only white Kiwi born in captivity - which actually looks red in the photo due to the light...

In addition to the birds, we also saw some native New Zealand lizards. Among them are the Tuataras, which can live for a very long time and are said to have already existed during the time of the dinosaurs.