As Kiwi birds seem to be a bit thin on the ground around here, we decided to visit the Kiwi Centre to get a decent look at some. We came across some other interesting animals whilst we were there. 
Here is a photo of Eloise with a stuffed Possum! And here is another one trying to creep up behind me! Eeek…
Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take any photos of the Kiwi birds as they are kept in very
dark habitats and any camera lights would frighten them. We saw two
Kiwi’s, a male and female. The female only had one leg, poor 
thing having to hop along on one leg and without any wings to help her balance.
Here’s a nice stuffed Kiwi that I took a photo of, weird isn’t it?
After seeing the Kiwi birds, we went upstairs to feed the giant long finned eels. OMG, these guys were HUGE!
Apart from myself, Eloise and Greg there were just two other people there and when the lady asked for someone to come forward to feed them I was the only who volunteered! Duh……….
I was given a pair of long silver tweezers and a bowl of Ox heart which had been cut into strips. Here I am leaning over the edge of the tank feeding the eels! I’ve enlarged this photo so that you can see just how big these things are.
I got slightly nervous when the lady said the smaller eels can jump out of the water at feeding time. I only managed to feed a couple and then I freaked out, so I called Greg over to have a go!
Here are a couple of photos of Greg, he also stroked some of the eels, we have taken some video footage but I didn’t get a still photo of that unfortunately.
Following our visit to the Kiwi Centre we stopped off in Hokitika to have a look around one of the Jade shops and then we went onto Cafe de Paris for a coffee and some cake!
We took along Eloises new friend to the cafe, cheeky little thing ate all my chocolate cake!
Definitely going back to this cafe, had a lovely baguette with pancetta, brie, sundried tomato and side salad. Yum, yum!!