This Wednesday for CHEW we went over to Limestone Island. It was awesome!
We met the ranger around 10am take his boat across to the channel to the Island. Limestone Island is a reserve; they have worked really hard over the years to get the island cleared of pests and make it a place to bread kiwi and other animals, insects, and plants that need to be protected. They have even gotten rid of all the ants except one kind. There are still a few pests on the island that they are still working on getting rid of.
After two trips the whole group was on the island and, Ranger gave us a history of the island. It is truly a fascinating history you can read all about the island here http://www.limestoneisland.org.nz/ The island was orignally Matakohe Island when the Maori were settled on it. The Maori had kumara plants all over the island. After the Maori the island was used as a cement factory which is what all the ruins are from. When the cement factory was abandoned and starting to fall down the air force came in a bombed the site so that it would just be rubble and less dangerous. Once our history lesson was complete, the Ranger took us on a tour of the island and showed us all about the traps and things they do on the island. He has only been living on the island a month but anyone can tell he truly loves it there!
We went up to the site of the Pa (moari settleing). It was beautiful from the top! It is always amazing to see Whangarei from a different angle and from the island it was amazing! We went to the ruins of the old cement factory, and he even showed us how he finds the Kiwi’s on the island.
Pa Site
finding Kiwi's
Kiwi egg
It was definitely the best CHEW that we have had and everyone really enjoyed the day even with the heat.
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