The Great Kiwi-Finding Mission
On the first day of my trip to New Zealand, I planned to see kiwi birds - a national emblem of the country that is also quite fluffy. As a fan of cute animals and learning about new places, I wanted to start my trip with the iconic kiwis.
I had originally planned to see kiwis at the Auckland Zoo, but when I got there, that part of the zoo had been damaged by recent storms, and the entire area of New Zealand native birds was unavailable for viewing. Unexpectedly, right at the beginning of my trip, I had to change my very first plan.
This hasn’t always been easy for me to do - and I still struggle sometimes to change plans. I prefer to have everything organized well ahead of time, and by the time I went to New Zealand, I had been planning rather obsessively for the previous eleven months and had everything figured out perfectly.
Before I left, my parents reminded me that sometimes things change - and this can leave opportunities for finding fun new things I didn’t know about. But there were some things I considered non-negotiable, like seeing kiwis, and I knew I needed to find a way to make it work.
I still went to the Auckland Zoo to see other animals, but I started to worry. What if I didn’t find another way to see kiwis? Whenever I had a quiet moment that day, I researched the other places my tour would take me and if there would be kiwis there.
My next idea was to visit the Te Puia Kiwi Conservation Centre in Rotorua, on the first full day with my tour group. After a wonderful morning in Hobbiton, we had scheduled time to explore Rotorua, and I said I wouldn’t go to a popular excursion with most of the group so I could see kiwis. Little did I know, the kiwi center closed before I even got there, and so I made a quick decision to join the group for their evening activities. I ended up seeing a haka (war chant), eating food cooked in the ground, and watching glow worms in their natural habitat - none of which I thought I would be able to do in New Zealand, and none of which I would have done if my original plan worked out.
I was encouraged by this, and therefore not too disappointed when I tried to see kiwis in Nelson to little success. The trip was nearly halfway over at this point, and after asking several tour guides, I reached the conclusion that the last day of the tour was going to be my only option for seeing kiwis.
It stressed me out to leave it to the last minute, but on a trip like this, I had no choice. I had control over some of the activities I was doing, but much of it was decided for me, and since I had assumed I would be seeing kiwis at the beginning of the trip, I hadn’t planned any other kiwi outings. I had to simply wait and see - something my brain finds very difficult to do.
I’m happy to report that, on the last day of the tour, I and several of my new friends visited the Queenstown Kiwi Park and saw many rare New Zealand birds including kiwis. As I watched the surprisingly large brown birds snuffle in the dirt, I was thrilled that I managed to make it work.
My own overthinking and overplanning tendencies aside, I grew up in a family where vacation spreadsheets were mandatory and everyone knew what we were going to be doing at all times. I’m not used to figuring things out “on the fly” on vacation or at home, and the mission to find kiwis was something that I was really worried was not going to come to fruition.
In the end, I saw kiwis twice - I visited the Kiwi Park again after the tour ended - and brought home a plush kiwi I can hug whenever I want. And more than that, I learned that I can be more resilient than I thought, even when things don’t go the way I think they will.
Michelle Cohen, a writer in the Chicago area, was diagnosed with OCD at age 3. She hopes to educate others about her condition and end the stigma against mental illness.