One of the birds is called the Millenium Falcon, so named not after the Star Wars films, but thanks to the long-standing financial support from the Millenium Hotel in Rotorua, arguably the most eco-responsible accommodation provider in the city.
Qualmark silver-rated, the hotel is heated via the subterranean geothermal activity, with energy efficiency core to its operations. Waste management is also advanced, with paper, cardboard, aluminium, glass, fats/oils, organic waste, plastic, scrap metal, batteries, paint and IT hardware all diverted from landfill.
The hotel is a founding member of the Rotorua Sustainable Business Charter, which now has over 70 members. Along with volunteering days for its staff, the hotel also supports Women's Refuge and another pioneer in the eco-tourism industry - Rotorua Canopy Tours.
Known as the 'Ziplines', this 2.5-hour tour is both aerial - via a series of scenic-if-you-weren't-so-scared zipline flying foxes - and terrestrial, on tracks through pristine and ancient native forest. It's a mixture of adrenaline and education about our 'silent forests' and the introduced stoats, weasels, rats and cats which kill 70 million birds a year in New Zealand.
Each paying tourist contributes to the trapping operation in this forest, and returning native birdlife.
It's a true social enterprise - financially self sustaining, while at the same time turning its thousands of clients into environmental advocates and ridding its patch of murderous pests with the proceeds.
No eco tour to Rotorua is complete without a mountain bike ride in the Whakarewarewa Forest, but since our group included a six-year-old and an eight-year-old, we were confined to the learner tracks - an 8km loop which, to the young ones' credit, we did twice.
The free facilities at the carpark, which include showers, bathrooms and drinking water, are crisp and clean. Mountain Bike Rotorua's Carl Jones was our guide for the day, and kept the kids enthralled with his aerial antics - Carl is one of New Zealand's best mountain bikers.
The trail, even at these lower levels, is delightfully scenic, and winds, dips and crests its way through pine and Californian redwood forest. For children more advanced, a shuttle can be caught to the high point of the 'Corners' trail, which winds its way back over a gradual downward slope.
By now we were hungry, so made a beeline to Rotorua's Eat Street, which has proven to be the hub of the city's dining scene, although good cafes and restaurants exist outside of it.
The draw card to Eat Street, apart from its restaurants (serendipitously, given recent literary events, we dined at Atticus Finch, which was excellent), is the geothermally heated pavement. A closed-loop bore brings hot water to pipes beneath the paving, warming the entire area, which is also protected by a giant roof.
Rotorua is a town coming of age, and the tourism dollar is helping to both transform the inner city (not historically known for its charm), but also to preserve and enhance its significant natural capital. It's encouraging to see locals not only recognising the value of what they have, but also simultaneously realising a prosperous living and improving the natural environment.
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