Trounson is a small island of old-growth forest surrounded by pastureland. It has a DOC campsite at the forest entrance and is managed to control pests. DOC (Department Of Conservation) is the ministry of natural resources here, and they maintain cheap campsites all over the country, usually with at least toilets and water supply, and usually in stunning locations. Most have no one onsite, just an honor box to drop your fees into. I'm sure some take advantage, but there's really no reason not to pay the fees, its usually only $10-15 per person per night, and if it keeps these places open its well worth it.
In the daytime we walked around the forest trail to see some huge old kauri trees in the thick bush. But the real attraction of this place is that thanks to intensive predator trapping, the forest supports a healthy population of Kiwi-birds. But they only come out at night as they are nocturnal feeders, so we went out after dark with our red-lens headlamp and slowly tiptoed through the trail. 10 mins in we heard some strange grunt-like noises, so I shone my low-powered headlamp and there was a huge Kiwi. They are big like a chicken and just peck around the forest floor looking for grubs. We were thrilled to see one so soon as they say many don't see them at all!
The next night we thought we would try our luck again, so we went out at dark under bright moonlight and walked around for about an hour. We saw an eel in the river and a couple glowworms on a huge stump, but no Kiwi so we headed back. There we lots of people in the trail this night, some were tramping through the bush with high-power flashlights blazing, running in the direction of the Kiwi-calls, there were groups of people on guided tour, we thought there's no point with all the lights and noise.
But on our way back, right near the gate out of the forest we heard some rustling to our left- we stopped, I shone the dim light and there was another Kiwi! This time we were dead-quiet, so the Kiwi didn't seem to know we were there, it just went about its business and we got a good 2-minutes to watch before he wandered off.
It is great to see the famous bird so soon in our travels- we put it down to our Kiwi-spotting technique- just be quiet and don't blind them with your high-power flashlights!
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