Date: Monday, May 14, 2001
Rotorua, New Zealand
Another “mainly fine” day in Rotorua. Broken clouds and sunshine.
Linda joined us for pancake and eggs this morning and then it was off to the Agrodome for the sheep and farm show. We learned probably more than we really needed to know about the nineteen major breeds of sheep in New Zealand. The main breed that represents the highest percentage is the merino. It’s a great producer of wool and the one on display must have had about an eight inch thick coat.
The show was fun and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Carl inadvertently bought four sheep during the auction phase. He scratched his nose at the wrong time. Don’t know how he is going to get them on the plane back.
After lunch in the KEA Joan, Roy, Doris, Jack, and Shirley, and myself took a ride into town to the city park and walked around the steam vents and bubbling mud baths. It was a nice walk and chance to get some fresh air mixed with the hydrogen sulfide in the air. After that it was back to the campground where Joan had a nap and I took another dip in the hot mineral baths.
Around 6PM the bus for the Tamaki Hangi show and feast picked us up at the campground. The show was very well done as usual and the Hangi feast served buffet style was excellent. The meal is prepared in the Maori Hangi style in a pit with rocks that do the cooking. We had beef,lamb, chicken, fish, kumara, potatoes, etc. We are going to have to work really hard on the build to get rid of the extra pounds put on during our touring.
I talked some with the bus driver from 2005 who is a real character. The bus trip is made part of the whole evenings experience. The bus was our waka (canoe) and it’s name was Weka. So we traveled on Waka Weka. Andy was made our Chief and will forever be known as Chief Andy. He did an excellent job of leading the other two bus chief’s in the very intimidating confrontation with the village chief’s. Until the village chief’s accepted our waka weka chief they did a lot of grunting, tongue extensions, spear action, etc. but Andy held his ground and was eventually offered a peace offering. We could then follow our waka chief into the village for the evening program. On the way back to the campground the bus driver had each nationality group sing a song from their country.
We had a call from Bob and Esther and they were in Christchurch and will be turning in their KEA, flying to Auckland, picking up a KEA there and meeting us at the campground in Manukau, a suburb of Auckland. We are all looking forward to seeing them once again. Bob said that it will be nice to see some people that he knows once again. We are planning on having a welcome back dinner for them next to the campground at the Happy Day Buffet. This is the same campground that the team stayed at last year during the second week of building.
It was another great day in New Zealand.
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