So I left the Coromandel Peninsula and drove down to Rotorua. They say you know you are in Rotorua bc of how is smells, like sulphur. Lots of natural hot springs and sulphur springs. It is a very touristy town, but has so much to see.
I stayed at the Duxton which was VERY nice, a bit too nice. I went to the tourist office to find out about accomodations and it was such a busy weekend, most everything was booked. Kids out of school etc. The Duxton was on the lake and my bathtub had a view of the lake! Sweet! I am all about the tub! They also had free laundry machines for their guests which was fantastic bc at Puka Park on the peninsula they wanted to charge me $10 to do a load...forget that! Out of spite I didn't do laundry there, so when I got to the Duxton, my clothes were pretty much marching themselves to the washer....everybody hop in!! Colors, whites, you all go together. Socks, underwear maybe you should hit the trash, No? well get in there w/ the others :) I was very excited to have clean clothes and for free!!
The next day I went into town and rode the gondola, rode the skylift (which is a ginormous swing out over the mountainside)I screamed and screamed!! It scared me much more than I thought it would, plus I figured I wouldn't make a sound, nope. Blonde girl screamed all the way.... and then rode a luge downhill. I think there were about 5000000000 kids there that day, so I took the gondola down and went next door to the Kiwi Encounter.
Kiwi--it is a fruit yes, but it New Zealand's national bird. Which may becoming extinct. It is bigger than a football, (almost) and nocturnal. They have large, strong feet for such a small bird and they lay the largest bird egg, larger than an ostrich. They have two ovaries and once the first egg is laid, thirty days later a second egg is laid. Their beak is maybe three inches long and their nostrils are at the end of their beak, not where their beak meets their head like most birds. They keep the same feathers/fur from birth. Kiwi's are also flightless. At the Kiwi Encounter which is funded by a trust and public donations, the researchers find Kiwi eggs in the wild and bring them to the establishment for incubation. The birds hatch and then when appropriate, they are released into the wild. They can live 30 years or more! The exhibit was dark (being nocturnal) and there is no glass between you and the birds. They are separated bc they are so territorial, and they kind of bounce/skip around. I could hear them breathing and sniffing the ground for worms. One also put his beak in the water dish for a drink and I could hear him blowing bubbles in the water. So cool!
On the radio--They have advertisements for sheep vaccinations. Novax.
On the tv--Balls of Steel, this was a show I saw last night about people who could muster up the courage to play pranks on the unsuspecting public. The pranks weren't all that wild, but the language was. "Mother F**ker, F**k You, take it up the a**" were all part of the dialog, on regualar TV! I was blown away! They also had people peeing on TV, as if they were sitting on a toilet in a stall, could see their heads and their feet. In order to answer a question they had to pee, the bell would ring, then they could answer. I wasn't impressed. But hey, much more liberal I guess.
Agrodome--A tourist sheep farm, I got to feed sheep, deer and ostrich. They breed deer for meat. Fellow deer. The big buck I fed, was named Bronson. I also got to see kiwi vines, they grow sort of like grapes do at vineyards except taller.
"Heaps"--this is THE word if you are from NZ, heaps of traffic, heaps of stores, heaps of tramping trails (walking trails), heaps, heaps, heaps! I think it is so cute, Ric and I were told it is a big word for little New Zealand. Heaps.
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