This weekend was the last weekend that Bobbi and Heather had in New Zealand and Bobbi's host mom, which is also my cooperating teacher took us to Rotorua for the weekend. On friday night, before we left, we helped the teachers clean up their classrooms and then helped set up for year 6 graduation, When night came year 6 had a disco/color explosion graduation party full of dancing and food all night. It was so much fun to watch the kids run around and all dressed up in clothing outside of their usual school uniforms. Us Americans killed it on the dance floor needless to say.
On saturday morning we woke up early and headed to Rotorua. When we got there I went to the Hobbiton movie set tour in matamata and Bobbi and Miriana went Christmas shopping. The tour was beautiful in the rolling farm hills of New Zealand and the Hobbit houses were neat to see placed in the ground. At the end I even got a drink in the pub that the characters went to in the movies. There were a lot of people from the states and I even met someone that knew someone that went to my high school! Small world
After the tour Bobbi and Miriana picked me up from the tour and we grabbed some lunch. After lunch we headed to Te Puia which is where geysers, geothermal features, a kiwi house, and even a cultural Maori experience show and university was held. We went to watch the Maori haka dance and then went on a tour with a tour guide around the park. Seeing geothermal features and geysers made me feel like I was back at yellowstone again. The woman that lead us on our tour was very informative and shared a lot of personal and inside experience about the Maori culture, even more than I had learned at school. The money that you pay to enter into the gates of Te puia went to funding a traditional Maori degree in arts and crafts for the university the museum/experience created to help bring back traditions from the Maori culture. We watched people do bone/rock carving which is a very sacred gift you give people that mean a lot to you. Then we saw traditional wood carving which takes hours and hours to create, all wood carvings that are sold in store around New Zealand are hand made and are symbols in Maori culture. Then we saw the weaving school where they took plant harakeke to create weaving and traditional clothing, which was incredible to watch them turn plants into pieces of clothing.
After Te Puia we went to the Green and Blue lakes which are lakes that you can see straight through the bottom of the lake it is so clear and they are green and blue when looking out across the water. I was in awe the lakes were so beautiful, It reminded me a lot of flathead lake in Montana near Glacier national park.
After seeing the lakes we went to Rotorua lake and drove around government gardens, which is where the the former governor used to stay and they have now turned into a museum and garden. The museum had been shut down due to it not being up to earthquake regulation standards.
We grabbed some dinner and headed to the Redwood forest. They had a Redwood forest just like the redwood forest in California but they connected some of the trees with swinging bridges. There were 23 total bridges, we did one loop around the bridges during the day light and one loop after it grew dark outside. On some of the trees there were lanterns made with recycled materials such as bamboo and bark. What an incredible site to see even it being so different from daytime to night time.
After walking around for a long while we got some ice cream and went back to the motel we were staying out. I was dead tired and fell asleep right away. The next morning we woke up, grabbed some breakfast and headed to Hamilton. We went to the Hamilton Gardens which had a garden featuring a lot of different cultures from all around the world, it was very creative and calming to walk around the large gardens.
When we got tired of walking, we headed to grab some food a local pub and headed home. That night we had a syndicate dinner and a lot of teachers and families came over for a barbie (BBQ New Zealand style). It was fun to see the teachers outside of school and hang out in a relaxed environment
What a great last weekend in the North island! This week is the last week of school so the kids are very excited to start their summer vacation!
