Blogs from East Coast, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania - page 7

Well, it's Halloween here, which doesn't really mean much, trick-or-treating is just starting to pick up in popularity but most people don't do anything. So...back to where I wrote last... The rest of our time in Rotorua didn't offer much exciting but then we headed up to the town of Whakatane (pronounced fu-kah-tah-nee). We got there long before we could check into our hostel so we headed to a beach and relaxed and read - and I went running and felt like I was in better shape than I have been in a long time. We walked through town on our way back to the hostel and we found a cd shop and decided to spend some money on some music. For $10 each, which is much cheaper than anything else, we got the Garden State ... read more

Meh, I wrote quite a lot yesterday then left it open to go eat dinner. The woman we are staying with wanted to play solitaire after dinner and got quite addicted so I didn't get the computer back last night and even though it said it was auto-saving my work, it certainly did not so I'll start over tomorrow. For those of you who don't know, you can subscribe with your email address to my page and it will send you an email every time I add an entry - this might be easier for you than checking it randomly.... read more

In our last week we visited drove up the East coast once again turning inland at Te Kaha for 16km along unmade up road. This was taking us into the wopwops (as kiwis call the outback, or the back of beyond as Brits might say). The road wound around the hillside and the driver required careful navigation of potholes as well as fording two rivers. We werent quite sure what to expect, but turning a corner revealed an oasis-like plateau of land in the midst of the impressive Raukumara Ranges of hills. We stayed the night in a cabin which felt like something out of a novel, with toilet outside, and a generator whirring in a nearby building. (The satellite dish was rather out of place!) The water wasn't running when we arrived because the horses, ... read more

Today we did a lot of driving - heading towards the Goat Island on the east coast (via the west coast!) where we planned on doing some snorkeling. First we stopped off at Waipoua forest to see the biggest trees in New Zealand. The Kauri trees are worshipped by the Maoris because they believe that they are descended from them (the biggest Kauri tree in NZ, Tane, was the son of the sky and the earth gods and ripped the two apart, creating life!). "Tane is the giver of life and all creatures are his children". Estimating the age of Kauri trees is difficult but Tane is supposedly said to have seeded around 2000 years ago during Christ's time! To give an example of how big these trees are here are some of the dimensions of ... read more

We woke this morning in Masterton, Home of the Golden Shears. While it is true that our final destination is Reefton, the main goal of our travels is the 2007 Golden Shears. Over three days, the best of the best compete in sheep shearing, wool handling and pressing. It has been my dream to compete in a sheep shearing contest. We were sadly only able to attend the first day of competition but it was everything I had hoped for. Obviously, the deft handling of wool and the brute strength involved in pressing are to be admired, but nothing can surpass the spectacle of speedily shorn sheep and these boys were shearing a sheep every minute. The blood, sweat and tears makes shearing a real spectator sport (blood from the occasionally nicked sheep - you lose ... read more