The high life

摘要

From the cool of their living room Maria Bradley and Paddy Baxter's children Belinda, six, and Robbie, five, watch in hushed excitement as a tui feeds on the flowers of the mountain flax that grows near a window overlooking Coronet Peak. This elevation, 300 metres above the Wakatipu basin, doesn't sustain many of the native plants that flourish around Queenstown ten kilometres away but hebes and mountain flax thrive here and the tuis often fly up to fifteen kilometres from the primary native bush area for a bit of variety in their diet.