The girls first school break was for two weeks around Easter. We left Thursday after school, and stopped for a rest/play in Wanganui, at a playground billed as the 'best in the world.' I'm not sure about the billing, but for a town of 40,000 it was certainly an impressive public place for kids.
Here's the gang just finished with a short boat ride inside Waitomo cave where the walls and ceilings are covered with glow-worms. Like stars in the sky inside a darkcave. Pretty cool. Even cooler, they offer absailing and rafting for people over 10 -- we'll have to come back!
A local professional sheep sheerer has a tourist show including old-fashoned lumbering and lots of animals
Very low-tech Maori natural hot spa and mud bath, called Ngawha Springs, near Kaikohe. Entry cost about $3.50 for the family, about 12 baths of varying temps, from hot, to very hot.
Biggest tree in NZ, a Kauri, estimated to be between 1250 and 2500 years old. Its Māori name means "Lord of the Forest" Tāne Mahuta measures: Trunk girth 13.77 m (45.18 ft), Trunk height 17.68 m (58 ft), Total height 51.2 m (167.98 ft), Trunk volume 244.5 m³, Total volume including the crown 516.7 m³[2]. According to Māori mythology Tāne is the son of Ranginui the sky father and Papatuanuku the earth mother. Tāne was the child that tore his parent’s parental embrace and once done set about clothing his mother in the forest we have today. All living creatures of the forest are regarded as Tāne’s children. As the picture shows, Eleanor related well to this!
No comments:
Post a Comment