Mom Visits and Mt. Ruapehu Erupts

My Mom has come to visit us in New Zealand. I've been looking forward to her visit for months. Having her here is like having a piece of home and familiarity in New Zealand. She's been here for a week and a half and we've kept her busy.

First, a day in Auckland visiting Devonport, Titirangi, Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World, and the Sky Tower. Next, a trip to Wellington at the bottom of the North Island. It's an eight hour drive from Hamilton through everchanging landscape to Wellington. The trip was long but fun. Wellington reminds me of Cleveland, it has a nice feel to it. It doesn't feel over crowded like Auckland. In Wellington we drove around the coast and saw the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean, the drive was georgeous. We also went to the Te Rapa Museum, which was a cool experience, and viewed all types of exhibits about New Zealand and it's people. Next, we took a train ride back to Hamilton. It was my frist time on a train. It felt pretty much like riding the rapid for a long time. The trip was fun at the start, but by the time we reached Hamilton I was ready to be off of it. I won't lie, I'll be back on a train again when Cara and I go to the South Island. After the Wellington trip we did some sight seeing around Hamilton including going on the dinner cruise Waipa Delta. Mom also met my church family and got to have lunch with some of our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ at their home. Next, we went to Rotorua and visited a Maori village, ate some hiangi, and saw a cultural performance. We also went to a sheep show at the Agrodome (I got to try my hand at milking a cow, eww.) We also went to the Rotorua Museum and learned about a tragic Volcanic eruption in Rotorua in 1886 that killed over a hundred people and destroyed a beautiful land formation that had been one of the seven wonders of the world at that time period. It was there that I suddenly came to the realization that I was on an island where a volcano could blow at any moment.

With that said, a volcano did erupt the very next day. Mt Ruapehu, largest volcano on the North island (and still pretty active) erupted without warning last night. New Zealanders seem to be pretty calm about this. "No worries mate." Some ski fields on the mountain are closed today but may open again tomorrow. Hmm....Weird.... That's NZ for you. I think the prayers of a certain somebody before I left Tetelestai that I "would not fall into Mount Doom" are more serious than I previously thought. Ha ha.


Anyway, it's great having Mom here.

Maori, Hangis, & Hakas - Rotorua

My grandparents are here in New Zealand for a visit.
We've planned lots of things for them and left some things unplanned.
One of those "planned" things was a trip to Rotorua.

I say "planned" loosely because we planned to go to Rotorua, and we planned to have a hangi and see a performance, but we didn't actually call to make reservations until the day of the trip. Um...we're not good at this trip planning thing. Anyway, there were spots available and we found ourselves on the road to Rotorua.

The drive was beautiful. It was relaxing. It was fun. It was georgeous. It was.....wheewew wheewew....a cop! I was stopped by a cop. As I was driving to Rotorua with my family I was stopped by a cop for the first time ever. Oh man was I scared. I honestly didn't know what I had done. I wasn't speeding. No broken windows or obvious car problems. I pulled to the side of the road and waited in nervous anticipation as the officer walked to my window.
Officer: "Good Morning."
Me in my head, "Tell me what you want and I'll let you know if it's a good morning."
Officer: "I'm doing a license check. Can I see your license?"
Me in my head: "I'm not getting a ticket?! Yeeeeeesssssssssssssss!"
I showed him my license then he asked how long I was gonna be in NZ. After that he let me go.
Whew! My first up close experience with a New Zealand cop. ...I still think their cars are cute.

In Rotorua we visited the Moari village of Whakarewarewa (try saying that three times fast....actually, try saying that even once). It's a thermal village located on an active volcano. Lots of steam comes out of the ground which they use to cook a hangi meal of meat, potatoes, stuffing, and bread pudding. Hangis are wrapped in foil and cooked in the ground where there are steam vents. It's pretty cool to see. There is also boiling mud around certain areas of the city and boiling water pools (the water can get up to 395 degrees F). The Maori people of the village cook corn and other vegetables in this boiling water. We actually got to watch the corn being cooked under the water for ten minutes. How cool to have a volcano do the cooking for you. And somewhat dangerous.

In this village we also went on a tour to see and hear about the Maori way of life. We saw some geysers in the distance. We also watched a cultural performance. The performance was cool. At one point the men performed a traditional war dance called a Haka. It was full of energy and expression. A funny thing that happened during the performance was that there was a man taking pictures with a fancy camera who decided to stand in the middle of the audience to take his pictures instead of in the back. In fact, he decided to stand right in front of me and Cara. We couldn't believe he could be so rude as to stand in front of people just so he could get a picture on a camera that seemed to have and intense zooming capability, and would probably capture better pictures than mine even if he stood in the back. Cara was debating telling him to sit down when a relative came over and pulled him away and made him sit on the end. Ha. Now that was funny. Also, at some point during the performance, one of the speakers on the stage had to stop and tell some of the tourists in the back to be quiet because they were standing around talking (and yelling) instead of watching the show. Some people can be really rude!

We ended the day going to Lake Rotorua and watching some black ducks, black swans, and white geese float on the lake. We had dinner at a buffet place (where I tried oysters for the first time, eew), and drove home tired and content. It was a thoroughly satisfactory time in Rotorua.