Megan Singleton: Bloggeratlarge.com writer on her experience in Wellington's Zealandia

Bloggeratlarge's Megan Singleton has been exploring the local wonders found in Wellington. 

She visited Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne, the famed wildlife sanctuary designed to preserve New Zealand's unique flora and fauna.

Read more about Megan's visit to this local attraction - and Wellington's other offerings - here. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks AB Travel with Wendy wu Tours unique
fully inclusive tours around the world. No.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Megan Singleton often comes to us in our travel segment
from Somewhere Far Away and things, but we forget that
sometimes there are some more wonderful things that we can
be doing in our own backyard. And I know that
you've been to Wellington an awful lot, but this is
the first time that you have been to the Urban
Eco Sanctuary Zeelander.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Yes, have you been? No, I haven't no there Zeelandier, Yeah, yeah, Zelandier.
It's been there since two thousand. The predator fencing was
put around it in nineteen ninety nine, eight point six
kilometers of predator fencing. So for the first year after
they built it they had to just keep trapping and

(00:59):
removing all the pets that are not native to New
Zealand within that five hundred acre piece of native paradise,
which is just pretty much at the top of the
cable car just you can walk or there is a
free shuttle about two k's through Calbourn and the next
minute you've arrived at Zeelandier, and I'll tell you what.

(01:19):
It's just a lovely bushwalk on a lovely day anyway,
and there's lots and lots of trails for all levels
of fitness, including bush chair wheelchair if you needed to.
But it was also some steepest stuff. But they've got
a five hundred year plan to restore really native New
Zealand plants and birds and reptiles, bugs and critters. And

(01:45):
I absolutely loved it. I can't believe it's been there
for twenty four years and I've never been, and I
can just highly highly recommend it to people. Shoot up
the cable car. I think I paid eleven dollars for
my round trip. There's a lovely cafe at the top,
so who's not to love a carrot cake with a
big swirl of cream, cheese, icy and a cup of

(02:07):
coffee overlooking the city. And then head down to Zeelandier
take the kids. There was school trip there while I
was there as well. Book a guided tour, so I
was lucky. I arrived five minutes before one of the
guided tours, so that was sixty dollars but well worth
the two hour walk with this really knowledgeable guide and Honestly,

(02:27):
you're walking around and you're looking up in the trees
and it's like a treasure hunt because you're looking for
some of New Zealand's rarest and most endangered birds. And
it's great fun. Really really loved it. Put lots of
photos up on the blog.

Speaker 4 (02:41):
No, I'm just going through the post now. So did
you get to see a real range of what you
were looking for?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Like sometimes you can go and you don't see that bird,
or you don't see this, you don't see that.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Yeah, did you get a glimpse? We did enough to
satisfy you.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Absolutely. I've got this little they give you a wee
brochure and inside it there must be twelve fifteen sixteen
pictures of what you should look for, and there's birds,
and there's reptiles, and there's wetter and stuff, and we
must ticked off probably ninety percent of them, which was
really cool. I mean, the to Atara wound out, but
I've got a picture of where their burrows are, which

(03:14):
you wouldn't know if you weren't to have a guy
to tour because it was sunny, but it wasn't a
warm enough for it to Atara to come somedathing. But
we saw the Tarka hay, which was they thought it
was extinct until a decade ago. Lots and lots of
toy with Kakaiki. We just saw so many cool things,
and of course the toy and the ketor were absolutely
everywhere I got it, looked up, looked up at this

(03:37):
toy high up in the branches, and I saw this
pool coming towards me, and I thought, what's the chance,
one hundred percent chance, Francesca, it hit me in the
face of co here week ago.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (03:51):
Meghan.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Hey, look, Meghan takes you through her day at all
her morning at Zeelander, So you can just head do
bloger at large dot com and have a little look
at that if you're thinking of doing a trip, because
of course school holidays are coming up, I think that'd
be a great destination.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
For more from the Sunday Session with Fred Jessica Rudkin.
Listen live to News Talks at B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.