ONE FAMILY. TEN MONTHS. LIVING A DREAM. Explore New Zealand's spectacular landscapes with an award-winning nature writer. Escape into more than 80 outdoor adventures, including wildlife research aimed at aiding endangered kiwi. Learn intriguing ecological and historical facts about the final large landmass to be populated by humans. Delve into Kiwi culture as experienced by a quirky homeschooling family. This Dark Sheltering Forest is Book 2 in the trilogy, Cry of the Kiwi: A Family's New Zealand Adventure, a captivating chronicle of a family's travel dream fulfilled in a land of volcanoes, giant trees, and endangered flightless birds. As a writer, naturalist, and homeschooling parent, Magi Nams had dreamed of travelling with her family to far-away countries to hike through landscapes inhabited by exotic animals and plants. In the summer of 2000, her dream came true when she, her scientist husband, Vilis, and two sons, Dainis and Janis, left their home in Canada to spend ten months in New Zealand. In This Dark Sheltering Forest, the Nams drive north from their base in Lincoln, South Island, to Owhango, on North Island's Central Volcanic Plateau. En route, they hike scenic Kaikoura Peninsula Track, where a southern fur seal makes no bones about scaring Vilis out of its personal space, and colonies of breeding gulls emit high-decibel cacophonies. At a research site near Owhango, the adventurous Canadians drive quads over muddy, pitted tracks in Tongariro Forest, dodging danger as they trap stoats, the subject of Vilis's scientific research. Long hours in the outdoors introduce Dainis and Janis to the challenges of field research, and the entire family to the lush, cluttered beauty of a New Zealand rainforest. Thunderstorms pound down onto the forest almost daily, and wild cries of kiwi, New Zealand's avian icon, split the nights. During time off, the family tramps over an active volcano on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, the best one-day hike in New Zealand. They snorkel among electric-blue fishes in Goat Island Marine Reserve and spot glow-worms in Waipu Caves. On Tiritiri Matangi Island, they walk among takahe, saddlebacks, and stitchbirds, some of New Zealand's most endangered birds. In Waipoua Forest, they gaze in awe at the giant kauri tree, Tane Mahuta, "Lord of the Forest," one of the largest trees on earth. At Cape Reinga, New Zealand's most northerly point, they watch the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea churn into each other's embrace beyond the headland where Maori souls are said to slip into the sea for the journey to their ancestral homeland. Before returning to South Island, the Nams explore Rotorua, Wai-O-Tapu, and Craters of the Moon, three gaudy wonderlands that rest on the fiery guts of the earth. Along the way, Magi Nams reflects on the character revelations that spring from travelling, working, and playing together as a family, and the impact of invasive species on the ecology of New Zealand's fragile native ecosystems. Other books by Magi Nams in the Cry of the Kiwi trilogy: Once a Land of Birds Tang of the Tasman Sea New Zealand, South Island, North Island, family travel adventure, homeschooling abroad, New Zealand outdoor adventure, New Zealand nature, travel memoir, travel writing Books>Travel>Specialty Travel>Family Travel Books>Travel>Travel Writing Books>Travel>Reference Books>Sports & Outdoors>Nature Travel>Adventure Books>Sports & Outdoors>Outdoor Recreation>Hiking