Gannets!! Thousands of ’em!! So interesting!!
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Looks like eyeliner!! The up-close photo is thanks to Jane!!
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Preening.
A walk on the beach of black sand.
Para-gliding on the beach. (background)
The steps on the left photo can be used during low tide to get to the other side. It would not be good to walk to that side and stay until the tide comes in. There’d be another 6 hour wait to get back across.
This is called fruit ice cream — nothing like the foamy soft-serve stuff we get. You can get real ice cream or frozen yogurt and real fresh fruit that the machine swirls into a cup. DELISH!
Botanical Garden with wonderful statuary.
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We only had 90 minutes and we beat it through there as fast as we could so we didn’t miss anything.
No alligators; no crocodiles.
Fun!
It was just a serene place.
This is Constance’s arm. She’s showing us how we should not kill this walking stick since he’s harmless. The fence is electrified. None of us were brave enough to touch it.
Sheep!! I saw a lot of groups of sheep; but I wanted to see 20,000 at a time. 🙁
Kiwi’s. This was an old plant. Look how thick and gnarly it is.
First, the jade found in New Zealand issues special luck to those who rub it. Therefore, we saw a few big green rocks of jade outside establishments.
The country puts MUCH effort into keeping this kiwi bird from going extinct. They have people and dogs looking for and gathering eggs as soon as they are laid. The birds are nocturnal and lay their eggs on the ground. Once gathered, the eggs are brought to the hatchery and put into an incubator and they are carefully watched and cared for. For a mere $2000 USD donation, you can name one of the hatching eggs. When the kiwi hatches it loses some weight. The hatchery keeps them until they regain their weight and then they put them back into the wild where they originally gathered the egg.
Kiwis are not social and they are nasty to other kiwis and not seen during the day. I, uncaringly, asked why they put so much effort in keeping these mean and icky night-birds around. I had forgotten they are the NATIONAL BIRD! Good thing I didn’t ask anyone directly, just under my breath to Liz.
We were not allowed to take photos in the housing where two juveniles kiwis were living. They only are awake at night, so the hatchery changes their light settings to make them think it’s night during the day and vice versa. Since they cannot see red light, red light bulbs dimly light the room and we were able to see shadowy little beings moving around. Underwhelming for me.
These are human sized balls, filled with some water where people get inside and roll down the hill. Not for me!!
Liz originally had this room and Jane and I had one bed. It was a no-brainer and jane and I switched with Liz. It was a nice room and all the furnishings were for three people. Plus over that TV on he wall was an 8 foot screen you could pull down. We didn’t penetrate this situation, but it was the majority opinion that it was for showing porn and was for menage trois or thruples. I don’t know; I don’t care. I only cared that it had a kettle for coffee in the morning.
Janice came running into our room saying her lips were turning numb and her throat was closing up.
She had experience the same thing after buying a house with wet rotten floors and subsequent mold, and ended up in the ER last year. The hotel manager was searching for mold in the room, checked several things and then said “Oh yeah. Here it is.” It was in the window and window sill.
It was high season and the hotel didn’t have another room, so Lesa and Janice were moved to another hotel for 2 nights.
I only felt better because Janice was like our canary in the coal mine, and she didn’t react when she was in our room.
You can bet each hotel we arrived at had been thoroughly cleaned of mold.
Typical home in Rotorua.
Since Jane and I missed the rose garden, we walked to this garden before dinner.
Janice is a Portugese Water Dog breeder and she was off to meet with the sole breeder in New Zealand. Lesa chose to visit the redwoods. They are not native to NZ, but some woman 30 years ago insisted NZ needed redwoods and planted them. They are impressive.
The three of us decided we needed to do the luge. We were all set to do so when the gondola system shut down. Apparently there was a fatality of a mountain biker on the hill and it was in direct sight of the people in the gondolas. There was no timeline as to when it would begin again, so we decided to skip the luge. We dodged a bullet. It wasn’t a little cart in a single slot that you could control the speed. It was an unprotected cart on a very wide downhill path where anyone could pass you — or ram you!! Sheesh!! Too scary. (Just the pic was good enough.)
Another park next to the water.
And as I always say “If there are no pictures; it didn’t happen.”
All 5 of us had reservations for a 5-part spa treatment in the mud and mineral baths of NZ. It was only 4 blocks away and we were already to walk when our hero Tour Guide texts to say the sky is going to open up; I’ll drive you. What perfect timing! We avoided getting soaked.
The place was new and beautiful. We got into robes and then into warm shower, cold shower, icy shower, hot shower before going into the sauna for 15 minutes.
Due to my hatred of being cold and my eyelashes problem (they come off when wet), I got under those showers from neck down and a nano-second in the cold ones. Now the sauna and the steam room was wonderful. Between the two was the ice cube bath and cold shower. I partook a little bit. Then into giant mineral pools, some warm, some ice cold, some hot. And the last one had giant jets hitting your neck.
Then it was on to the mud room. I wanted to sit in a mud pool! But it was just bowls of liquid mud you smeared all over your body and then sat around waiting for it to dry. Then off to another steam room to loosen it up and wipe it off.
It WAS quite an evening!!