Rotorua, New Zealand- Days 2 & 3

Day 2- Skyline Rotorua Gondola

The Rotorua Gondola takes you up to the top of Mount Ngongotahã, offering you panoramic views of the lake and surrounding area.
The island is called Mokoia Island and is a sacred site for the Te Drama tribe (Mauri) and an animal sanctuary. You can only visit it as part of a guided tour. The lake is part of an ancient volcanic cauldron thus there is a lot of geothermal activity in the area as well.
This park also has this wheeled Luge track and a Zip Line but we all agreed to leave that for the foolish younger crowd!
Fantastic views from up there though!
Lunchtime visitors.
I made a new friend but he wasn’t very chatty!
Heading back down.
An Irish Pub, we didn’t go in though.
It’s their Fall in March so leaves are changing.
The Australasian Swamphen, known as the Pūkeko in New Zealand.

Rotorua, New Zealand- Day 3

On day 3, we decided to take a guided tour of the town and surrounding area. As you can see from some of these pictures there are steam vents all over the area, They use geothermal energy for home heat and to produce electricity.
Entering the world’s youngest geothermal area.
One of the many, many caravans we’ve seen over here!
It was amazing to me that these ducks could tolerate the hot water and rather toxic water!
Steam vents everywhere.
An explanation of the Waiotapu geothermal make up.
A group picture cleverly arranged according to height!
Bubbling mud pots all over
Very much like Yellowstone but much younger!
This is Lady Knox Geiser. It’s unique in that they can make it erupt for their daily show by pouring a cup of laundry detergent into it!
It was kind of a grey day so the colors are more muted than normal.
The Sulpher smell wasn’t as bad as we anticipated, although it did give Joni a headache.
Unless of course you didn’t like them that much anyway!
The birds and ducks here are obviously used to this toxic smelling water.
Moving on to the “normal” water views.
What you lookin’ at?!
One of their thermal electric plants.
And here is something you don’t see every day, McDonalds Taupo Restaurant with an airplane!
For you avid golfers, a hole in one challenge. You tee off from the shoreline.
One of the smarter ducks not in the toxic water from before!
An interesting art exhibit.
Joni and Lane talking with our wonderful local guide. Sorry, we’re all old and can’t remember her name!
This is a map of the Wairakei Tourist Park area we’re in.
A very fast and long rapids/falls!
They have this tour boat that takes you right up to the falls. Kind of a mini version of the Maid of the Mist boats at Niagara Falls.
This was a pool on private land that the owner allows all the locals to use.
On our way “home” for the night, then off Auckland in the morning.

Rotorua, New Zealand- Day 1

On our first day here we Ubered to this Mitai Village dinner and show, very similar to the Luaus in Hawaii.
They have the traditional pit where the food is cooked, it smelled amazingly good!
The traditional pig
Really good sweet potatoes and the chicken ( wrapped in foil, I assume so it doesn’t taste like the pork).
After dinner we walked down to the river to see the shows performers arriving in their tribal canoes (called Wakas in the Mauri language) for the show.
It was an amazing show too!
Here they are tossing those sticks across the stage to each other. It was very fast action, kind of like juggling with multiple people at once!
If you’re a Mauri child, I wouldn’t recommend pissing mom off!
The facial tattoos are Mauri tradition and are meant to look fearsome, it’s working!
Or dad either!
Doesn’t Joni look fearsome here?

Wellington, New Zealand

In Wellington we decided it was best to get a local guide to tour us around. He took us up to this viewpoint called Mount Victoria Lookout where you could see the whole bay area. Wellington became the Capital of New Zealand in 1865, replacing Auckland.
It was bit of a stormy cloudy day, so it made for some pretty awesome pictures with the sun poking through!
A bit of a close up view of the waterfront area.
A little history of how Wellington got its name.
This is Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington.
The entrance to the harbor with the original lighthouse up top and the newer one down below.
Another ferry like the one we came here on. It was more of a cruise ship!
As you would expect, they love their soccer (football) team!
The government went to great lengths to make this Miramar Peninsula predator free, so the indigenous species could thrive.
Our guide took us to see the Weta, which is a museum of the characters and such of the Hobbit movies. The name Weta in New Zealand refers to two main concepts: a group of giant, ancient endemic insects and the world famous creative and special effects film studios named after them.
Like this cute guy!
This is an assortment of their swords and other weapons.
Joni and her little friend!
Jan and Lane fending for their lives!
Just hanging out with my new friend!
Just in case you think all this is real and you need it!
Up the street a bit is Stone studios where the magic happens!
Now back to reality, here’s a nice bay view.
There was a lot of really different modern architecture.
As like everywhere here, the old mixed in with the new!
A little shop humor!
We’re boarding the famous Wellington Cable Car that will take us up to a viewpoint overlooking the city.
On our way. You can see here it’s a pretty steep climb.
As you can see, it’s a pretty great view from up there!
The trees and foliage here are pretty tropical!
Another view of a cable car descending. The locals use this to commute to and from work.
This is the new Parliament building
And this is the old one. We all decided, as have many of the locals, that this one is much nicer and
“Parliament like”!
And a frog with his own sliding board!
I wonder if this is the Mayor of Wellington?
We went to the Museum of New Zealand
The next six pictures are Boulders and their descriptions representing the Maori people and their heritage..
Maori sayings in their language and the English translation
These hand carved boats were amazing! Such beautiful workmanship!
Such intricate details!
That’s a lot of manpower!
Predecessor to our modern day catamaran and/or party boat?
Various oars, also hand carved.
Here are some examples of their various lashings used in the construction of their boats.
More of the beautiful carvings, very imaginative!
This is a Maori Meeting house and is sacred, so no one was allowed inside. I’m not even sure I was supposed to take outside pictures!
More exquisite carvings!
Great taxidermy on this Albatross! They’re huge!
A photo of the Maori tribe from 1887.
A bull made from corned beef cans.
A Britten 1000 motorcycle made by Britten Motorcycles in New Zealand 1992.
The bottom of the world globe shows just how close New Zealand is to Antartica!

Train Ride to Picton and Ferry to Wellington

We got a very early start to get to the train on time! Here’s a shot of the sunrise on our way out of Christchurch on the train.
Beautiful countryside views on the way!
Our trip included some excellent waterfront views!
A black swan.
Arriving in beautiful Picton!
We found this interesting whaling museum in town.
This is a unique chess set that was confiscated from a person in 1989. The set is made from whalebone and black coral. It was made in Tonga.
This a model of the whaling ship Orca. You can see the harpoon canon on the bow of the ship
Whale bones.
This is the skull from an Orca, those are some pretty impressive pearly whites!
This is a Fresnel lens used in all lighthouses of the day. I learned about this by reading a novel written by Jimmy Buffett, “A Salty Piece of Land”!
This is the Picton Borough Council Mayoral Chair.
Back out exploring town, this was a pretty ornate wrought iron fence!
Here we are, waiting for the ferry to Wellington.
Our tickets included food and all beverages! CHEERS!
Views around the harbor, waiting to leave for Wellington.
This is a huge ferry! Very similar to the one we took in Greece. It felt more like a cruise ship, aside from the cars and trucks on the deck below.
Here’s your Costco Leg of Lamb on the hoof!
The ferry slips.
Another ferry leaving the harbor.
On our way to Wellington!
Look at all the rental caravans!
Kind of a weird wallpaper for a ship, a forest?

Onward to Wellington……

Christchurch, New Zealand-Day 5

Hurunui Hills Merino Sheep Farm

Sunrise from the front yard of our VRBO. Today will be exciting; Scotty is picking us up this morning to take us to his family’s Sheep farm! His dad, mom, Scotty and his brother run it. This is a 6th generation farm!
This is the VRBO that Jan found for us. It’s a beautiful house right on the water and was very comfortable!
This is the farm. i don’t remember the actual size of it, but it’s huge!
That’s Scotty, Jan, Lane and Joni in the picture. He told us this was the spot on the farm where he got married.
A group photo
Two of the three working dogs they use. These boys do the field herding together. They do not bark, they just follow their orders and do their job
This is their third dog. Her job is to get the sheep into the chute to go to shearing. She does bark since the sheep are already corralled. We have a couple of videos but unfortunately, I couldn’t get them to upload properly. If you want to see them work, just Google sheep herding dogs. It’s very fun and fascinating to watch!
When they’re off duty they are very affectionate. She loved belly rubs!
Rounding up a stray sheep.
More belly rubs, please!
The boys have them corralled, now her turn to get them in th chute.
In line to be sheared.
Look at those eyelashes! The Kardashians would be jealous!
The boys job is done, ready for a ride.
Scotty’s mom is the shearer along with the hired hands. Here she’s explaining the process.
Some of the shearing tools.
The shearing tool.
A bundle of wool with the awards it has won. They produce Merino wool exclusively and have earned many awards!
Many top garment producers around the world use their wool.
Here she’s showing us the fine threads they get from this wool.
Back outside, this is their family greenhouse.
A scarecrow of sorts!
They also have a few pet sheep. We think they aged out of being useful for wool, so now they live their retired life with treats and pets!
Grapevines over their back patio.
We had a lovely Crumpets and tea that Scotty’s mom prepared. She shared that her sons are encouraging them to retire and travel, but she isn’t interested in doing that because this is her office! Why leave it to travel!
We’re back in the van to go to lunch.
More sheep on our way. Interesting fact: sheep outnumber people in New Zealand 5 to 1! AND they’re delicious (the sheep not the people!)
Scotty took us to this winery where we had great wine and absolutely the best lamb shanks we’ve ever eaten. Sorry, no pictures, I was busy eating!

That’s the end of our adventures in the Christchurch area.

Christchurch, New Zealand- Day 4

Kaikoura Whale Watching Tour

On day 4 of our grand adventures with Scotty, he took us to Kaikoura where we boarded a boat to go whale watching. This area is known for this activity, so we were very excited to go! And the weather was perfect too!
We’re about to board and start this adventure!
This high tech monitor shows our boat without the water, so we can see the terrain of the bottom and see what our depth is.
Sorry this is a bit blurry, but its showing what whales we might see.
The captain suspects there’s whale activity nearby so she’s scanning with some kind of sonar device to determine what direction to head.
She’s done with that, now she’ll move the boat towards it.
While searching, we got to see an Albatross! According to our commentator they are rarely seen!
Another screen shot of our boat, showing a depth of 745 meters or 2444 feet.
Here’s a closer shot of the Albatross. An Albatross’s wingspan can be 6.5′ to 11,5′ while a seagull will be about 3.5′.
Thar she blows! In short order, we spotted a whale, and not just any whale! it was a Sperm Whale! According to our guide, who’s been researching whales for 15 years, this is very rare! This whale can stay submerged for hours and only surfaces for about a half hour, we were very lucky to witness this occasion!
That protrusion you see sticking out of the water is not a dorsal fin, it’s just where the backbone drops down towards its tail fin. These whales are the largest whales that have teeth and can be 52 to 62 feet long for males and 35 to 40 feet for females!
Another interesting fact she told us is that the blowhole on sperm whales isn’t centered, it’s slightly to the left.
What a special day: to see both an Albatross and a Sperm whale on the same trip!
I wasn’t able to get it, but luckily Joni got this parting shot as the whale dove back down!
Here’s a clearer representation of this massive creature. According to our guide they were hunted extensively years ago because of the abundance of oil in their head, up to 500 gallons!
That sighting was only about 2 hours in on what was supposed to be a 4 hour trip, but there was a medical emergency onboard, so we had to head back in early!
What an incredible trip! It was unfortunately cut short but the good news was they refunded our money 100%! Fantastic adventure and FREE! Hopefully the poor sole who had the medical emergency was okay in the end.
They added an observation deck on top of this water tank, pretty cool!
One last view of the bay then back home for the day!

The end of our adventure for day 4, coming up, Day 5……..

Christchurch, New Zealand- Day 3

Akaroa

We’re on the road again with Scotty, on our way to visit the beautiful town of Akaroa.
Our route took us through this tunnel. I’m sorry, I still think we’re on the wrong side of the road!
The trip there was very scenic.
This was kind of bizarre , they planted these trees in a perfect square! It’s called a forestry block, pine trees for future harvesting. This particular one is called the Damn Square of Akaroa.
These are our first glimpses of their beautiful bay.
My obligatory shot of a pier, love the shadow!
Interesting tree.
Every fisherman’s rules!
Downtown Akaroa, beautiful flowers everywhere.
We were intrigued with The Giants House. After a short debate about trudging up the hill to see it, we decided to go for it. After all, we came half way around the world to be here!
The artist, Josie Martin, who has lived here for 26 years found some shards of broken tiles or pottery while digging for a garden and she had the idea of creating some artwork from it. That plus when she began, the town and neighbors donated more. It expanded exponentially from there! She calls it The Happiest Garden in the World!
Jan and Joni “relaxing” on this tiled cement bench!
The more we explore and look, the weirder it gets!
I warned you! The farther you go the weirder it gets!
These two are Joni’s favorites, NOT!
Lane about to be eaten by a huge rabbit!
Jan and Joni catching a little shade.
I’m not sure exactly what this is representing?!?
Upward and onward!
Why not, an octopus next to an elephant!
There was actually a nice view of the bay from up there.
Yes, VERY steep stairs and no railings! They obviously don’t have OSHA here! BTW, I did not go down them!
The hands have it!
Those non OSHA approved stairs from down below.
For a little normalcy intervention, some pretty flowers!
And back to the non normal!
More Topiary.
Broken wine bottles? Use them too!
Sure, why not!
Jan making friends again! No, we’re not adopting him!
Dove Sentries?
Hopscotch anyone? This looks to be a work in progress.
Yes, these are real flowers!
Well, back down to reality!

Christchurch, New Zealand- Day 2, Arthurs Pass National Park

Scotty took us to the train station in Christchurch where we boarded a train to Arthurs Pass.
This is the scenery along our train trip. I didn’t take a lot of pictures because of the reflection in the windows. While we were on our way up there he drove his van up to meet us and then took
us through the beautiful countryside.
The next several pictures are ones Joni and I took with our iPhones, much better than my Nikon could do from the train!
The map on the train showing us where we are on the route.
We’ve arrived at Arthurs Pass, now on to our adventure afternoon with Scotty.
In the van heading out.
Scotty took a group photo of us.
And of course, I had to take one with him in it too.
Charlie Warden was the first Ranger for Arthurs Pass National Park.
Devils Punchbowl Falls was our first stop. It was quite a hike to go up to the falls so all the close up pictures were up to Joni!
Devils Punchbowl Falls from a distance.
A close up view via my 300mm lens, no hiking required!
She even took a selfie!
This bridge was as far as Jan and I were willing to hike
Jan and Joni by the Arthurs Pass National Park sign.
Some views of Arthurs Pass as we move on to our next stop.
This is the story of the three sisters, depicted by the three busts shown here.
Lots of caravans here visiting.
The explanation of the shelter carving.
Lane trying to get this bird to cooperate for a photo.

The ending of a long day, van ride back to our VRBO to prepare for day three, stay tuned……..

Christchurch, New Zealand

I’ll start this post with a bit of an add for this awesome gentleman. Scotty of ScottyB Tours was our tour guide for our 5 days in and around Christchurch. He was a fantastic guide too! He was knowledgeable and very interesting to listen to. He knows the area extremely well and had lots of interesting stories along our journey. We highly recommend him if you are ever in New Zealand, he is available for tours anywhere on the South Island!
If your interested, his website is: http://www.scottybtours.com
Our first day was a tour of Christchurch itself. Our first stop was this place. The site was a building that housed Canterbury Television Station, King’s Education Language School, Hair Consultants, Relationship Services and The Clinic Medical Center. On February 22, 2011, an earthquake of 6.3 Magnitude struck the city and the building collapsed, killing 115 people and injuring many more inside. The site is now a memorial honoring the lives lost that tragic day.
This was part of the foundation of the building.
A memorial to those lives lost.
This is a church that they lovingly call the “Cardboard Cathedral”. It was designed and erected next to the memorial and it got its name because what you are looking at is the roof of the chapel
and those are 100 heavy duty cardboard tubes coated with waterproof polyurethane and flame retardant.! They sit on 8 shipping containers which form the base and walls. It was designed by a famous Japanese architect Shigeru Ban in association with a local firm Warren and Mahoney.This is their temporary place of worship while the original church is under construction to repair the damage caused by the earthquake.
Even the chairs that are the “Pews” are in keeping with the Japanese theme.
This is the Christ Church Cathedral which as you can see is fenced off while they work on it. Completion of the project is not until the end of 2027!
Local artists took advantage of the fencing and are displaying some beautiful artwork!
Next on our tour was the Christchurch Botanical Gardens. As you’ll see.
As you’ll see in the next several pictures it was very colorful, especially since this was the beginning of their fall season!
That is a huge tree! Especially compared to Joni and Lane!
Not all the flowers are real or life size!
Lane on the left, Jan in the middle, Scotty and Joni to the right.
Quite a variety of different color roses too!
We loved this fountain!
Some of the beautiful old buildings around the Gardens
There is also some interesting art pieces scattered throughout the city too!
Down along this river they have installed another memorial to those lives lost in the earthquake of 2011.
I’m not sure what this is about, kind of odd!
Christchurch is where a lot of the expeditions to Antartica leave from! They’re only about 3500 miles from there. It seemed weird that the farther south you go down here the colder it gets; opposite of where we live!
More beautiful flowers!
We had lunch at Delilah, a very cool restaurant with great food!
After lunch Scotty took us to this trail that lead to a great view of the bay.

That’s it for Day 1 of our Adventures with Scotty. Stay tuned for Day 2……..

Brisbane, Australia-Day 2

Maleny Botanical Gardens and Bird World

It was a rainy day but that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of our guide in the Bird World enclosure! She was a fantastic guide with lots of great information!
Joni making friends!
The residents didn’t seem to care about the rain either!
I don’t think James was 100% sure he was enjoying this close encounter!
The bird was though!
I was glad I had a hood between this bird’s talons and my bald head!
Stunning White Peacocks
Joni making more friends!
Jan wasn’t too sure she was enjoying this! Exactly why I was glad I had my hood up!
Lane and friend! She had that feather duster to keep them away but apparently A) she didn’t want to or B) the bird didn’t care!
Joni’s turn, but at least she has thick hair!
The feeding station.
Twins! Whose nails are longer, the birds or our guides?
The useless feather dusters.
We rented a golf cart to tour the Botanical Gardens but due to the rain it was a short trip.
The rain and foggy conditions made the gardens look even more tropical and lush!

This concludes our pictures from Sydney and Brisbane, Australia. Next up will be our adventures in New Zealand! STAY TUNED!