Epic Gannet Safari: Cape Kidnappers Overland Adventure!

We did the Cape Kidnappers and Gannet Safari tour while in Napier, New Zealand, Bruce was our tour guide, absolutely amazing! Bruce was very informative and spoke throughout the entire 4 hour journey. The views are breathtaking and seeing the Gannets was amazing! Well worth every penny!

Amazing 4 hour tour by bus to include city center and up to cape Kidnappers and Hawk Bay to view Gannnet native birds colony in Napier NZ. Bruce our driver and tour guide shared many facts about the area and the mating, migration habbits about these birds. We stopped for a brief lunch prior to the return to our cruise ship.

Visited Gannet colony in cape kidnappers. Guide was very knowledgeable, gave lots of information during the drive to the gannets. Beautiful scenery en route. Gannets were amazing, quite smelly! You are able to get very close to the birds, plenty of time given to enjoy the bird colony. An extra treat was the coffee and biscuits provided by the guides. Worth the money.

The Gannet Safari’s Overland Ltd tour of Cape Kidnappers was fantastic- and one of our fave tours in our vacation! You start the tour at their heart quarters which had a cute gift shop, restrooms & all the info needed! They broke our large tour into two groups (I loved that they didn’t pack us all on one bus) and we broke into groups in the buses. The ride out to the gannet colony is pretty long- which ended up being really nice! Great views & lots of history the entire ride. We really loved our guide, John, who was not only knowledgeable, but also had a great sense of humor! He shared lots of information while driving us to the colony. Once at the colony (on a beautiful sea cliff with amazing views) you get out and up close to the gannets! I read online you get close but didn’t realize you get INCHES close!! They have a wooden divider were you can’t go across but the gannets come super close and seemed curious about the humans visiting their land. It was seriously breathtaking to see the thousands of birds, all nesting, flying around, doing mating calls and waddling around up close! Great for photographers! It was really unique to just be let out of the bus and enjoy the gannets on your own terms. They gave us about 45 minutes at the colony so lots of time to see them and soak it in! The colony was massive during Mid January when we did the tour. It was really out of this world to be that close and witness nature. After enjoying the colony, they drove us back to the head quarters! John stopped at a beautiful cliff overlook on the way back which was a nice bonus! We really enjoyed the tour from the beautiful drive up to the colony and getting to witness such a majestic colony up close!

Excellent experience, loved every minute of it. Wonderful tour guide Garth who gave fabulous salient points about the area. Highly recommend.

The Gannets were awesome! So awesome to be so close to them, to see babies and teenagers AND the drive there and back was beautiful country

Guide was very experienced and provided a lot of local knowledge that we found very interesting. Trip was maybe a little long, maybe 2 hours would do the same.

Fantastic 3 hours,worth every penny. Our guide and driver, Pete,(admired his skill and commentary while driving a bus on some steep and winding tracks) was so knowledgeable. Learnt about Gannets,local farming and wildlife,history of Cape kidnappers, the golf course,the lot. Would strongly recommend the tour.

An excellent half-day expedition with Driver/Host Pete who kept us entertained and informed about Gannets and many other interesting and relevant things as we travelled to and from the Plateau Colony site. The thousands of adult and young birds were a sight to behold (and hear!), it was fascinating watching them indulging in their natural behaviours apparently unconcerned by our presence just a few steps away. With just our two small buses on the site it was most enjoyable, and thank you for arranging a beautiful sunny day... !

Absolutely brilliant trip. Our most knowledgeable guide, Wayne, not only gave us first hand knowledge of the gannets, their habits and rituals but also the workings of the whole farm and reserve ecosystems.