April 3

Awoke to rain and gray skies, mod temps. Breakfast at the hotel and taking the bus out of the capital of Wellington for Rotorua north bound.  The south island is all about tectonic plate movement with giant mountains and earthquakes. The north island is more about volcanic influence on the land.  We are getting a bit warmer but not hot and autumn is in the air with changing leaves of trees.  The north island has plenty of low mountains and rolling hills. Tight canyons and broad valleys. Besides being known as Kiwi’s, not the fruit but the bird, NZ is called the land of the long white cloud.  Being islands the oceans are always influencing the weather.  The national bird is the kiwi, now living as endangered species found mostly on North Island and national plant is silver fern seen on all kinds of logo and legal signage. The Maori colors are red, white and black and there is a move to replace the current national flag with a more representative flag of their country.  Right now the flag is navy blue with the British union jack and Southern Cross with no extra star like Aus. The first referendum failed but will pass to change the flag next time.  NZ is still part of the common wealth but are moving to distance themselves even more from Great Britain.  NZ has not history of penal colonies, largest gold strikes in the world came out of here, followed by willing settlers, many from Scotland.  They farm timber here in the form of pine, it is a strong low grain pine great for building.  They cut off the low branches early on to remove knots etc, called radiata pine.  NZ was formed the fourth national park in the world in history.  Mt Cook was gifted to the NZ govt. by the Maori to be made into a national park.  We pass through small farming villages.  A quick stop at the village of Taihape for lunch.  Seeing more Maori as local people.  Their theme here is the gum boot, Wellies, and they have a very serious gumboot toss area where we can try our luck.  Very green, always green rolling hills.  We then pass by three active volcanoes, no action today but mostly gas and rock explosions these days.  The volcanoes are conical with long sloping sides of old lava, all between 7-9,000 feet.  We are on a high plain with scrub tussock and growing from pumice.  We can see a record of thousands of years of eruptions wherever the soil is cut.  We come to the caldera lake, largest in NZ, Lake Taupo.  An island sits in the center as the old plug of the top of the volcano.  Chuck tries his hand at aqua golf again and gets some close calls.  The town of Taupo is all resort and holiday properties.  We take a short diversion through the thermal pipeline used for geyser steam power.  Then we stop to see the river that drains out of Lake Taupo and it forms a chasm of waterfalls  and rapids.  The water is aquamarine blue. We come to the town of Rotorua, a heavily populated area of Maori.  The town sits in a giant caldera and the rim of it is clearly seen in the surrounding hills.  The lake and island are in the center.  The town is flat for walking and we can see steam coming out of the houses being used from the geysers for heat and power.  The practice is grandfathered and moving away from it as it is diminishing the geysers.  We are picked up immediately by our home host for an overnight stay at their house.  We and another couple are taken out into the country to a small farm.  First we stop off to see the river in high water with fast moving chutes of water.  We see kayakers shooting the rapids.  The farm is small with sheep, goats and chickens.  The house is a relocated railroad workers home.  Margaret and Dean are out hosts, both born in Auckland.  We have a lovely dinner of NZ wines, home grown food and meat from their stock.  Lots of conversation.