Two in the Bush by Gerald Durrell Read Free Book Online

and took our leave of Kapiti. As the launch ploughed its way across the channel towards
the mainland I looked back at the island, now just a black silhouette against a pale green and gold sunset. The wild birds of Kapiti were, I reflected, not as unusual as all that. If birds and
animals anywhere in the world were left in peace and knew that they could trust the humans with whom they came in contact, the world could be full of Kapitis – in fact, with a bit of effort,
the whole world could be one gigantic Kapiti, and how wonderful that would be. But that, I reflected sourly, was an idea which was never likely to materialise.

The Three-Eyed Lizard
    Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view,
    Which consisted of chasms and crags.
    Hunting of the Snark
    We crossed over from Wellington to South Island by the ferry, and as we were suffering the charms of this sea voyage Brian told us that there were two things in South Island
that he particularly wanted us to see, for they were both conservation success stories. One was the royal albatross colony at Taiaroa Head and the other was the breeding ground of the yellow-eyed
penguins. After this, he said, with the fanatical Organising gleam in his eyes, we would visit the off-shore island where lived one of the most fantastic reptiles in the world, the tuatara.
Considered from every point of view, this was an itinerary that would make any self-respecting naturalist’s mouth water, and so we landed on South Island and set off full of enthusiasm.
    As we drove down towards the Otago peninsula and Taiaroa Head, we soon discovered that South Island was totally different in character from North Island, although the difference was so subtle
that it was hard to define. It seemed to me that South Island was wilder and less inhabited, and yet there were just as many farms and just as much cultivation to be seen. I think it was because
you were always conscious of the great, jagged vertebrae of mountains which ran in a chain along the whole of one side of the island; even if you couldn’t actually see them, you were always
conscious of their presence. For part of the way the road ran along the sea coast, and in places the scenery was very wild and attractive, with massive rollers shouldering their way in to the shore
where strange, grey slabs of rock lay in sheets so that they looked like some giant’s fossilised library. On some of these rocks were small groups of fur seals, either lying in clusters
sunning themselves or plunging off the rocks into such a pounding maelstrom of water that you wondered how they could survive.
    The Otago peninsula lies near the town of Dunedin, and at the extreme tip of it lies Taiaroa Head. We drove into Dunedin to pick up Stan Clark, who was the warden of the Albatross Sanctuary, and
then made our way out on to the peninsula, which was a fairly hefty chunk of land, humpbacked like the hull of a rowing boat and surrounded by steep cliffs. The humpback part of the peninsula was
covered with long, tussocky grass and it was here, in this rather bare, windswept area, that the royal albatross – probably the most spectacular of all seabirds – had decided to make
its kingdom.
    The story of this Albatross Sanctuary was fascinating, and Stan, a tall, quiet, gentle man, told me with pride how the royals had been saved. Normally the albatross family has the good sense to
choose, for its breeding places, remote islands in stormy seas where they are safe from predators – including the worst one of all, man – but between 1914 and 1919 royal albatrosses
were seen flying over the Otago peninsula and landing on Taiaroa Head, as though inspecting the site to see if it would be suitable for a royal nursery. Then, in 1919, the first egg was found,
causing great ornithological excitement, for this was the first time ever that royal albatross had been known to nest on the mainland of New Zealand. A certain Doctor Richdale and the Otago branch