Hope you enjoy our photo gallery, be sure to book in advance if you want to have a guided tour with Driftwood Ecotours.

While working in the gum trees adjacent to our home I accidentally found this little chap. Skink numbers have gone down since my childhood and we were delighted to think that some might be living here.  A friend who is very knowledgable about skinks and geckos identified it as the ‘common skink’. Mice are an enemy of geckos and skinks as they can get ino the same small crevises were they hide. We will be making some kind of protection for the skinks in our garden such as flat rocks or corrigated iron. This skink was quite inactive due to the cold, once they warm up they become active again.

I had the great pleasure of sharing the great yet simple experience of kayaking on the Opawa River and mouth of the Wairau River with a recent visitor to our country. Carlos Urrea from Colombia was visiting Marlborough on business and a friend referred him to our kayak tours. As you will see from the photos we had a great time and some brilliant up close birding that had our cameras snapping. (Click on the gallery photos above to get an enlarged photo).

There is very good birding on the river currently with plenty of royal spoonbills, banded dotterels, white faced herons, various tern species, black shags, pied shags, little pied and black shags, spotted shags and pied stilts. There have been great numbers of kingfishers up and down the river. The ‘good omen’ the Kotuku or white heron has been seen. Also we are pleased to report that the glossy ibis vagrant now has a mate and the pair can bee seen flying into our wetland at dusk.

Tommy who has befriended so many from around the world and closer to home passed away early last night after a recent illness. Tommy had the gift of giving confidence to many a novice kayaker, his striking pose at the bow of the kayak almost a trade mark.

Tommy has been put to rest at the site where the kayaks are launched so that friends old and new can give their respects, this spot was where Tommy would wait for the returning kayak party after his short run along the river bank having been put ashore down stream.

Faithfulness and loyalty are what we learnt from Tom.

Now he is on that big kayak in the sky. Goodbye dear friend.

Here are some of the stunning birds we viewed on a recent kayak tour at the Wairau Lagoon, the weather has been very good for kayaking and recent visitors from the US had the thrill of setting a sail to zest up their trip home. There have never been so many Royal Spoonbills seen in the area in my exprience. It is always magic to see them in flight and they are very photogenic.