Due to lack of time, just pictures

After having been traumatized by San Diego Zoo, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to visit Auckland Zoo. When I finally did, last Monday, i discovered that my concerns were completely unfounded. Auckland Zoo is a wonderful zoo, constantly improving the animal enclosures. At the moment, they are in the second year of a ten-year improvement plan to divide the zoo into zones, for example the Aussie Walk, where all the Australian animals are going to live.

On Sunday, the 27. November 2016, the Farmer’s Santa Claus Parade took place in Auckland City, mainly on Queen Street. I had never been to a Santa Parade before, so I didn’t know what to expect. It started on 1 pm, so we decided to leave a bit earlier and get something to eat beforehand. What we didn’t know was, that there was a Parade, before the Parade. Mostly groups from different countries and cultures performed, while dancing through the streets. Aotea square was also filled with people and there was a small orchestra playing songs. Not Christmas songs though, songls like the Pink Panther theme… Next to the Lego Christmas tree, Bubbles form the Powerpuff girls posed for pictures. And amassadors form a brand whose name I already forgot again, handed out free ice cream. Not exactly what I had imagined when going to a Santa Parade.

To be fair, Christmas in New Zealand is midst summer. People walk around in shorts, and even though they still eat traditional European christmas dinners, such as turkey, they start to abandoning those for a christmas BBQ. And while it is understandable, for someone from Switzerland, this all seems a bit foreign (which it obviously is).

As the parade started, I noticed something else that was quite foreign to me: the extent of the sponsoring. Obviously, there had to be some, as the parade itself is sponsered by the store “Farmer’s”, but what struck me odd was that most of the groups had hardly anything to do with christmas. Barfoot & Thompson, a company known for property auctions etc, was there with dancing houses that used a wated gun to splash water at the audience. I mean, I don’t mind, but I really can’t see the connection to Santa Claus or Christmas…

On the ohter hand, there were also cultural groups within the parade, which I appreciated a lot, considering how multicultural Auckland is. Also Santa Claus has next to his reindeers little pukekos in his sled and kiwis in front of it. Not to mention the vulcano he is sitting on.

One of the most obvious attractions in Auckland is the Sky tower. It’s visible from all over the city and you cannot help but notice it. Its name is not as it might seem, from it reaching so high into the sky or anything, its name stems from the company, Sky, who also built it. The Sky Tower is 328 high and is the heart of “Sky city” that also includes a casino, a hotel, restaurants and the buildings around Aotea square (cinema, bowling, arcade, food court etc.).

For the admisson price of 20 NZD for students, you get access to 3 platforms, 1 of which is a café on the 50st floor, and two observation levels with 360° view of Auckland city, Mount Eden, One tree hill, Rangitoto island, etc. We were lucky and the day we went up there was a beautiful spring afternoon, and the vision was flawless.

The Paradise Valley Springs Wildlife Park is a wildlife park built on the vestiges of an old mine. It has several different kinds of animals there, most of which are not native to New Zealand. New Zealand has only 3 native mammals, 3 kinds of bats, 2 of which are vegetarian. This is why there are a lot of flightless birds, such as the national bird, the Kiwi, but also the Pukeko. It also allowed insects to take the role of rodents, so they became pretty big. One of them is the Weta, which can easily get as big as a human hand.

Anyway. In the Paradise Valley Springs Wildlife Parks, there were mostly mammals and fish to be seen, as well as a turkey. Of course there were also some birds native to New Zealand, for example the New Zealand Wood Pidgeon, which is one of the biggest pidgeon species there is. The main attraction are the lions, but there are also Wallabies as well as farm animals.

The animals are all quite used to humans, and if you buy food in the shop, you can also feed most of them.

The Waimangu Volcanic Valley is about 30 minutes from Rotorua by car. It prides itself in being one of the world’s most recent volcanic attractions, because the whole valley was created during a volcanic eruption in the late 19th century. There used to be a geysir, but sadly it has dried out for no known reason whatsoever. The whole walk is about 4.5 km and takes a bit more than an hour. There was also the possibility to go hiking in the area.

The valley consist of several thermal lakes or pools, that are all connected and belong to the same volcanic system. For example, if the water level rises in one lake, it drops in the other. The colors of the lakes are very dependant on the weather and on the point of the termal circle they are currently in, so we saw the so called “Emerald lake” in a rather brown color.

Sadly, it was raining all day we were there, otherwise we would have been able to see more lakes.

Rotorua is a popular tourist attraction and a town in the Bay of Plenty, famous for its volcanic activity. It is situated near the Lake Rotorua.

There are many attractions available, for every kind of person, from Bungee Jumping to thermal Spas. We did neither, but we did explore the wonderful gardens of Rotorua, such as the Government Gardens, where also the Rotorua Museum, the Polynesian Spa and a Maori village is located. We also went on a trip to Waimangu and to the Paradise Valley WIldlife Park, which will get their own blog posts.

The one thing that everybody notices when entering the town of Rotorua is the constant smell of rotten egg, caused by the volcanic activity of the town.

We really noticed the volcanic activity that was all around us, when we went to one park, where they had ponds of thermal activity, with steam and boiling water.

Look for yourself!

On one Sunday, we went to a package tour, Waitomo Glowworm Caves and Otorohanga Kiwi House, which we booked via the social program provided by the school. I actually waited for this tour since the first week, when we decided to go to Hobbiton, not knowing that the Kiwi House tour was only offered once a month. Anyway, I was excited to go on the tour for basically the whole week leading up to it, only to be sick on Saturday and Thursday. Actually, we both were sick.

Of course, I wouldn’t let a trivial thing like being sick get between me and the Kiwi House, so we got up early on Sunday and went on the tour bus.

The Kiwi house was actually quite interesting. There were four “jetlagged” Kiwis that were awake during the day and a lot of other birds such as parakeets and new zealand wood pidgeons. Sadly, we were not allowed to take pictures of the kiwis. It was definitely worth the visit, even when sick.