Today was another great day except we left on our shore excursion with the iPad still in the room. Hence, only one picture today which was taken when we arrived in the port of Tauranga after sailing all night. So we will promise to really, really do better tomorrow on the pictures and we will see more Maoris in two days so the pictures on those very interesting people then.

We boarded the buses midmorning and drove through Te Puke (pronounced Tay Pookay instead of something else some of you might have thought of) which is the Kiwi Fruit capital of the world. We didn’t know it before, but Kiwi fruit grows on vines held above the ground kind of like grapes. Our bus driver was really into kiwi fruits and told us much more than we ever wanted to know – but we won’t bother you with the rest.

Our first stop was the Maori village of Mitai where we were met with the traditional greeting of Kai Oro which as you might guess means welcome. We then saw a canoe (waka) demonstration and a show which included weapons drills, poi ball twirling, and dancing and singing as well as a number of talks on the Maori culture. After all that great stuff we hand a hanji (fire pit) meal which was really good. This part of the trip was outstanding and we are really looking forward to visiting another Maori site in two days.

From there we went to Rainbow Springs to view some of the biggest rainbow trout (one was 42 pounds) I have ever seen and learn about their Kiwi preservation program. The biggest contributor to the very large drop in the kiwi population is a result of predators (bushy tail possums and other mammals) who either eat the eggs or the babies before they can protect themselves. As Carol noted yesterday, and adult kiwi is about the size of a small cat (it looked more like a bowling ball to me) and so they can pretty well protect themselves when they are full grown. Anyway, what Rainbow Springs does is find the kiwi burrows, pick up the eggs, incubate and hatch them, and return the resulting chicks to the wild – after they are big enough to defend themselves. They had two recently hatched chicks – one of whose name was Fat Freddy – and was he ever cute! A kiwi lays an egg almost the size of an ostrich egg but the bird is much smaller. Not only are the eggs huge, but she lays two at a time three times a year. Yet it is estimated that only 5 chicks grow to be adults for every 100 eggs laid. So the Rainbow Springs program is a big help but I don’t know how they ever find kiwi burrows in the first place. The woods are really thick and overgrown and the kiwis only come out at night.

Finally we went to the Hell’s Gate thermal springs. This was our least fun part of the today’s trip. As you can imagine, thermal springs are hot (actually hotter than boiling water in some cases) so doing this under an afternoon sun was really tiring. We saw steaming water and bubbling mud over and over again and it was a long hour of seeing what seemed to be the same thing forever. The mud in these pools has some medicinal value (you can smear it on you or even eat it) but neither Carol nor I thought we wanted that goop all over us, although most other people touched it or spread it on their hands. After seeing Yellowstone National Park, this was kind of disappointing.

On the way back to the ship, the bus driver explained that gas (petrol) costs about $9 a gallon in New Zealand, but diesel is only about $6 a gallon. This is the reverse of what it is in the US, but here, diesel vehicles also have to buy distance credits (based on truck/bus size) so it is possible to still have fuel in your tank but run out of distance credits. This means that the police can stop you for “driving to far’ and Slap you with a big fine. And all we have to worry about is driving too fast. He also showed us that all the telephone poles have metal bands around them so the possums that eat the kiwis can’t climb them. Before the bands were put around the poles, the possums would climb them, get electrocuted, and cause power outages. New Zealand possums are about twice as big as the ones in the US and have bushy tails

Off to bed now, but more tomorrow.

I (Jeff) thought I would add a little to Carol’s post about the glowworms and kiwis and the day as a whole. We are now on the ship and not limited to 30 minutes at a time as we had to do in the hotel so we can send more info.

Driving on the left side of the road was not so difficult and, in fact, I got so good at it, that I worry about driving on the right side when we get back. As near as I can tell, only the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and Japan still drive on the wrong side of the street. Didn’t hit anything and didn’t get any tickets but since the wipers and turn signals are also reversed, it was embarrassing trying to signal a turn and have the wipers start flapping wildly.

The drive was long (about 2 hours and 30 minutes each way) but it was worth it. In place of our Yield signs, they have Give Way signs and roads get dangerous when it is “frosty” instead of “icy”. Hidden driveways are concealed.

But the scenery was gorgeous! Very hilly with bright green meadows all over the place (since we are in the Southern hemisphere, November is late spring). We expected to see billions of sheep but instead saw thousands of dairy cows -and hundreds of sheep. Although sheep are often associated with New Zealand, they are no longer profitable since hardly anyone wears wool and no one wants to eat lamp.

And as Carol already said, the kiwis and glowworms were so neat! Wish we could have taken pictures but you could only see both of them in the dark. While the kiwi was just plane cute, the glowworms were truly awesome. We floated down an underground cave in total darkness but it seemed like we looking up at the Milky Way stars through a forest canopy. Our guide said there may be a few in Australia, but besides those and the ones we saw here in New Zealand, they can be found nowhere else in the world.

People here are very friendly and helpful. Remarkably, there is very little trash along the road. And, although we are trying to sample the local cuisine, it’s good to find a McDonald’s every so often.

Tomorrow is our first excursion from the ship. We will go to Hell’s Gate Thermal Park (geysers and mudpots and an awful sulfur smell) and to a Maori village. Hopefully we will get pictures to show you as well.

No pictures of kiwis or glow worms because they are nocturnal.  The classrooms who are following this need to make sure you know what “nocturnal” means.  Some of the coolest creatures are nocturnal.  Kiwis are shaped like a lightbulb, no tail, long beak, their feathers look like fur.  They have cute faces and are about as big as a medium size cat.

But the glow worms were the best!  They are tiny little larvae about the size of a pin.  They live in the ceilings of caves.  They each glow bright blue from their tails.  All together it looks like looking up at the stars on a clear night, litterally millions of them and it’s just beautiful. They turn into flies and only live 2 or 3 days after that.

We board our cruise today, Holland America.

Oh, Mel asked what the temps are, about 60s daytime. Happy birthday, Mel!

Tried to catch up on our sleep after a grueling 9 hour flight.  Then they wouldn’t let anyone off the plane until they sprayed the cabin for bugs.  Nice weather, very friendly people.  Jeff drove the car on the “wrong” side of the street and lived to tell it.  Picture of Jeff’s feet at the Sky Tower.