Golden Bay and Takaka Hills (New Zealand Part 25)

In the morning, we drove to the Ngarua Cave, where millions of stalactites are hidden. During a guided tour, we were able to see them in the large cave.

Bones of Moas were found in the cave. These extinct giant birds were flightless and could grow up to three meters tall. We saw a whole skeleton of a much smaller specimen, but were able to touch a leg bone of a large Moa.

We continued north through the Takaka Hills via a winding road. 

From the northwest, we drove to the Abel Tasman National Park, where we wanted to take a short hike to the Wainui Falls.

On the way back, we encountered some Pukeko. We used to think that these were flightless birds, but Wikipedia claims that they flew from Australia to New Zealand 1000 years ago and still can. We cannot confirm this by observation - we have only ever seen them walking...

We also stopped at the memorial for Abel Tasman, the Dutch explorer who sailed to New Zealand as the first European but did not set foot on the land. The plaque was not very impressive, but it was unveiled by Queen Juliane. The view, however, was all the more beautiful.

Then we drove back through the mountains to Motueka, our starting point for exploring the Abel Tasman National Park the next day.