As the weather is getting warmer as we travel north (it seems so strange to say that!) toward the equator, we've regularly been having our breakfast on the back deck outside the Terrace Cafe. The weather first thing has been a little brisk, but still very pleasant.
Our touring today is taking us quite a ways from our docking in Tauranga to the geothermal community of Rotorua. As we left the ship to board the bus, we noticed some commotion around the front door of the bus. It turns out that the driver of our bus collapsed just as passengers started to board his bus. We were delayed for a while until he could be loaded into an ambulance and a replacement driver be located. We were told later that he had been released from the hospital. Our replacement driver was scheduled for a different tour in the day, so they moved her into our bus and juggled the later drivers.
Rotorua is about 70 km south from the dock, and is one of New Zealand's most famous tourist destinations. The driver kept us informed about the little towns that we passed through and other information about the area as we moved along.
One of those towns was Te Puke. About 95% of the world's kiwis are grown in this area, according to the guide. We learned that the kiwi started as the Chinese gooseberry until about 1976, when it was genetically adapted and developed into the fruit that was renamed the 'kiwi' in honor of its new home growing territory. The best of the fruit is sent to east Asia, mostly Japan and China, where a single kiwi might bring $5 a piece. There are several varieties of kiwi, differentiated by color. The green is the most common, but yellow and red types are growing in popularity. The kiwi is grown on a vine, and the fruit develops on second-year growth. First-year vines are trained into a tent-like awning, which become the canopy for the new fruit in the second year. We passed a number of factories and warehouses used in the production process.
Our first stop is a popular attraction called Agrodome. This is a demonstration farm, mostly raising sheep, but also having a number of cattle, and several grain crops. We were there mostly for the sheep demonstration. We were seated in a large auditorium/pole barn that reminded me of sales barns at fairs and auctions in Indiana. Because we were delayed in leaving the dock, we had to hustle to get into the auditorium before the show started.
A kiwi sheep farmer was our master of ceremonies. He struck us as what we would have pretty much expected of a sheep farmer in New Zealand, down to his clothing, speaking style, and shaved head. He introduced us to about 20 different varieties of sheep from around the world, telling us about their characteristics, the quality of their wool, and so on. Each sheep was brought onto the stage one at a time to the platform with their category on a name placard below them, and a little food dish on a stand next to them. It was fun to see the differences between them, and even more fun to see them try to get the food out of their neighbor's dish rather than their own.
Our MC then took off his outer shirt and got to work at showing us how a sheep is sheared. When they are really working at it, the best shearers can get a sheep sheared in about 2 or 3 minutes. He took about twice as long, but it was still pretty impressive so see how clean the sheep was, and how much of a single unit the resulting pile of wool was in when he was finished.
He passed out some of the wool around the crowd (which consisted of people from our cruise ship and a large number of Asian families). The feel of the lanolin in the wool was interesting, and of course there was a pretty good sheep smell that lingered.
The next part of the show included herding demonstrations with farm dogs. The first dog's specialty was exceptional sight. This dog didn't bark. Three ducks were released from a door on the side of the stage and the dog herded the ducks around the stage with commands from the sheep farmer. A larger dog was brought in the barked almost constantly. This dog also was able to herd sheep. At one point in response to commands from the farmer, the dogs ran across the backs of the sheep!
Some volunteers were brought to the stage and given bottles that we thought they were going to have to drink, One of the young girls was really scared about that and broke into tears, but she seemed to do better when they sent some young lambs onto the stage to be fed.
We then went outside to the arena where we were treated to a demonstration of a dog herding three sheep across a bridge and into a pen. After the show, we had just a few minutes for a bathroom stop and a very quick look at the shops on site before having to re-board the bus. We saw enough to know that we had done very well in our earlier wool shopping.
A few miles away, we got off the coach to get on a gondola to ascend Mount Ngongotaha to get to our buffet lunch. The trip was smooth and we had our pictures taken for the first time since we were on the Great Barrier Reef. This is certainly different than previous tours we've been on.
At the top we were 'herded' into the dining area with a pretty impressive looking buffet bar. However, this ended up being one of the big disappointments of the trip. It seems that all of their lunch customers arrived at the same time and there was no organized pattern to get us through the line. We ended up standing in line for a long time before getting to the food, and then felt some pressure to get our food and get it eaten in time for a short Maori demonstration. We were crowded at the tables and by the time we got to the food, it was kind of picked over without being properly replenished. There was a general atmosphere of grumbling around the room.
We had pretty good seats for the Maori presentation, but I felt sorry for those in far corners of the room, which was not set up for a show at all. There were 3 male and 6 females Maori's in costume, and they sang and danced some traditional music. Several of the group were invited up to learn how to dance and to chant a haka. It was fun, but we didn't get as much information about the Maori from this as I had hoped.
We had a few minutes to look around at the top of the mountain, and we had some bees in the flowers to entertain us. There were some 'extreme' sports available, but there wasn't really time to justify the extra cost to participate in them. We took the gondola back down to the bottom and boarded the bus to go into Rotorua.
We drove around the town and were fascinated by the puffs of steam that seemed to be coming from everywhere. A number of the homes in Rotorua have harnessed this geothermal power to provide water and space heating for their homes. The community was and is a pretty popular spot for people seeking the healing powers of the heated muds and baths. We drove past several spas, some which date back 100 years or so.
Our main stop in Rotorua was the Te Puia Thermal Reserve. There are over 500 hot springs in this area, with walks past steam hissing from the ground, bubbling mud pools, and geysers shooting columns of scalding water skyward. We were warned of a strong sulfur smell, which was present, but not as bad as we were led to believe. Some of that might be because we had a real downpour as we arrived and intermittently while we were there.
Our guide, Kirimatao (Kiri), kept our group corralled by holding up a sign with our tour bus number on it, and calling us together by saying "My Family". She is a part of a long line in her family that have been interpreting the Te Puia Thermal Reserve for visitors. She is a weaver and later in the tour demonstrated the process of extracting flax fibers from a plant and then weaving them.
The geysers were pretty impressive, and we were able to watch them blow off on schedule, in between rain showers. The landscape around them was pretty other-worldly. If the weather had been nicer, we would certainly have enjoyed more time just appreciating the landscape in this section.
We took a short walk to see a field of bubbling mud. Again, the rain cut short that visit as well.
On the way back to the main buildings, we got a chance to see a live kiwi. Kiwi's are nocturnal, so most visitors don't get a chance to see one in the wild. The building here has the light upside down, so that it is light during the night and dark during the day.
This exhibit had a pair of kiwi's, but the female died a couple of weeks ago. The male was right in the front of the exhibit against the glass, but appeared to be sleeping. He might have been in mourning. We weren't allowed to take pictures in this area, but it was fun to see a real live kiwi, rather than the stuffed ones from the museum earlier.
Our last part of the tour was in the Maori Arts and Craft Institute. Here we got to see some demonstrations of carving and weaving as well as to visit the Wahiao Meeting House.
The carving is distinct, with plenty of evidence of the bulging eyes and wagging tongues we've come to associate with the Maori culture.
We had more rain and a quick run through the shop before we boarded the bus for the hour trip back to Tauranga. We had a brief bus tour of the town of Tauranga, Mount Maunganui, and the beaches that we were to have had at the beginning of the trip.
We got back on the ship for a short time to rest before dinner. We elected to try out the Terrace Cafe for dinner this time to give us a little more time to rest, and to experience something a little different. Besides, we didn't need to change our clothes to eat there, and we were tired enough that seemed like a good enough reason!
The final show of the cruise was from the Marina singers and dancers called 'Under the Big Top'. The show had a circus theme and a more elaborate set than the previous shows. At the end, they brought about 150 of the crew into the theater and did a couple of their 'employee of the month' awards.
Our touring today is taking us quite a ways from our docking in Tauranga to the geothermal community of Rotorua. As we left the ship to board the bus, we noticed some commotion around the front door of the bus. It turns out that the driver of our bus collapsed just as passengers started to board his bus. We were delayed for a while until he could be loaded into an ambulance and a replacement driver be located. We were told later that he had been released from the hospital. Our replacement driver was scheduled for a different tour in the day, so they moved her into our bus and juggled the later drivers.Rotorua is about 70 km south from the dock, and is one of New Zealand's most famous tourist destinations. The driver kept us informed about the little towns that we passed through and other information about the area as we moved along.
One of those towns was Te Puke. About 95% of the world's kiwis are grown in this area, according to the guide. We learned that the kiwi started as the Chinese gooseberry until about 1976, when it was genetically adapted and developed into the fruit that was renamed the 'kiwi' in honor of its new home growing territory. The best of the fruit is sent to east Asia, mostly Japan and China, where a single kiwi might bring $5 a piece. There are several varieties of kiwi, differentiated by color. The green is the most common, but yellow and red types are growing in popularity. The kiwi is grown on a vine, and the fruit develops on second-year growth. First-year vines are trained into a tent-like awning, which become the canopy for the new fruit in the second year. We passed a number of factories and warehouses used in the production process.Our first stop is a popular attraction called Agrodome. This is a demonstration farm, mostly raising sheep, but also having a number of cattle, and several grain crops. We were there mostly for the sheep demonstration. We were seated in a large auditorium/pole barn that reminded me of sales barns at fairs and auctions in Indiana. Because we were delayed in leaving the dock, we had to hustle to get into the auditorium before the show started.
A kiwi sheep farmer was our master of ceremonies. He struck us as what we would have pretty much expected of a sheep farmer in New Zealand, down to his clothing, speaking style, and shaved head. He introduced us to about 20 different varieties of sheep from around the world, telling us about their characteristics, the quality of their wool, and so on. Each sheep was brought onto the stage one at a time to the platform with their category on a name placard below them, and a little food dish on a stand next to them. It was fun to see the differences between them, and even more fun to see them try to get the food out of their neighbor's dish rather than their own.Our MC then took off his outer shirt and got to work at showing us how a sheep is sheared. When they are really working at it, the best shearers can get a sheep sheared in about 2 or 3 minutes. He took about twice as long, but it was still pretty impressive so see how clean the sheep was, and how much of a single unit the resulting pile of wool was in when he was finished. He passed out some of the wool around the crowd (which consisted of people from our cruise ship and a large number of Asian families). The feel of the lanolin in the wool was interesting, and of course there was a pretty good sheep smell that lingered.The next part of the show included herding demonstrations with farm dogs. The first dog's specialty was exceptional sight. This dog didn't bark. Three ducks were released from a door on the side of the stage and the dog herded the ducks around the stage with commands from the sheep farmer. A larger dog was brought in the barked almost constantly. This dog also was able to herd sheep. At one point in response to commands from the farmer, the dogs ran across the backs of the sheep!
Some volunteers were brought to the stage and given bottles that we thought they were going to have to drink, One of the young girls was really scared about that and broke into tears, but she seemed to do better when they sent some young lambs onto the stage to be fed.
We then went outside to the arena where we were treated to a demonstration of a dog herding three sheep across a bridge and into a pen. After the show, we had just a few minutes for a bathroom stop and a very quick look at the shops on site before having to re-board the bus. We saw enough to know that we had done very well in our earlier wool shopping.A few miles away, we got off the coach to get on a gondola to ascend Mount Ngongotaha to get to our buffet lunch. The trip was smooth and we had our pictures taken for the first time since we were on the Great Barrier Reef. This is certainly different than previous tours we've been on.
At the top we were 'herded' into the dining area with a pretty impressive looking buffet bar. However, this ended up being one of the big disappointments of the trip. It seems that all of their lunch customers arrived at the same time and there was no organized pattern to get us through the line. We ended up standing in line for a long time before getting to the food, and then felt some pressure to get our food and get it eaten in time for a short Maori demonstration. We were crowded at the tables and by the time we got to the food, it was kind of picked over without being properly replenished. There was a general atmosphere of grumbling around the room.We had pretty good seats for the Maori presentation, but I felt sorry for those in far corners of the room, which was not set up for a show at all. There were 3 male and 6 females Maori's in costume, and they sang and danced some traditional music. Several of the group were invited up to learn how to dance and to chant a haka. It was fun, but we didn't get as much information about the Maori from this as I had hoped.We had a few minutes to look around at the top of the mountain, and we had some bees in the flowers to entertain us. There were some 'extreme' sports available, but there wasn't really time to justify the extra cost to participate in them. We took the gondola back down to the bottom and boarded the bus to go into Rotorua.We drove around the town and were fascinated by the puffs of steam that seemed to be coming from everywhere. A number of the homes in Rotorua have harnessed this geothermal power to provide water and space heating for their homes. The community was and is a pretty popular spot for people seeking the healing powers of the heated muds and baths. We drove past several spas, some which date back 100 years or so. Our main stop in Rotorua was the Te Puia Thermal Reserve. There are over 500 hot springs in this area, with walks past steam hissing from the ground, bubbling mud pools, and geysers shooting columns of scalding water skyward. We were warned of a strong sulfur smell, which was present, but not as bad as we were led to believe. Some of that might be because we had a real downpour as we arrived and intermittently while we were there.Our guide, Kirimatao (Kiri), kept our group corralled by holding up a sign with our tour bus number on it, and calling us together by saying "My Family". She is a part of a long line in her family that have been interpreting the Te Puia Thermal Reserve for visitors. She is a weaver and later in the tour demonstrated the process of extracting flax fibers from a plant and then weaving them.
The geysers were pretty impressive, and we were able to watch them blow off on schedule, in between rain showers. The landscape around them was pretty other-worldly. If the weather had been nicer, we would certainly have enjoyed more time just appreciating the landscape in this section.
We took a short walk to see a field of bubbling mud. Again, the rain cut short that visit as well.On the way back to the main buildings, we got a chance to see a live kiwi. Kiwi's are nocturnal, so most visitors don't get a chance to see one in the wild. The building here has the light upside down, so that it is light during the night and dark during the day.This exhibit had a pair of kiwi's, but the female died a couple of weeks ago. The male was right in the front of the exhibit against the glass, but appeared to be sleeping. He might have been in mourning. We weren't allowed to take pictures in this area, but it was fun to see a real live kiwi, rather than the stuffed ones from the museum earlier.Our last part of the tour was in the Maori Arts and Craft Institute. Here we got to see some demonstrations of carving and weaving as well as to visit the Wahiao Meeting House. The carving is distinct, with plenty of evidence of the bulging eyes and wagging tongues we've come to associate with the Maori culture.We had more rain and a quick run through the shop before we boarded the bus for the hour trip back to Tauranga. We had a brief bus tour of the town of Tauranga, Mount Maunganui, and the beaches that we were to have had at the beginning of the trip.We got back on the ship for a short time to rest before dinner. We elected to try out the Terrace Cafe for dinner this time to give us a little more time to rest, and to experience something a little different. Besides, we didn't need to change our clothes to eat there, and we were tired enough that seemed like a good enough reason!
The final show of the cruise was from the Marina singers and dancers called 'Under the Big Top'. The show had a circus theme and a more elaborate set than the previous shows. At the end, they brought about 150 of the crew into the theater and did a couple of their 'employee of the month' awards.
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