A visit to Agrodome

Sorry for taking so long on this post! It's so easy to get caught up with things here.... I'll try to post more often in the future.
When we got to Auckland International, there were a few clumps of us that had established we were in Australearn together. We wandered, bleary-eyed and sleep-deprived, through an absurdly long customs line, an extensive slew of "bio-security" apparatuses, into the general entrance of the airport. I cannot tell you what a relief it was to find Australearn people, who ushered us over to a couple of stagecoach buses that would take us down to Rotorua.
After a relaxing night at Kiwipaka, our hostel in Rotorua (first two pictures in this album), we were ready for a trip to Agrodome. We had a buffet breakfast at the hostel, then hopped on the buses.
Agrodome is a sort of zoo-esque place meant to showcase rural kiwiana. They apparently have tours of the grounds (tractors & wagons), but we didn't have a lot of time to explore there. Shortly after arriving we gathered into a large auditorium for a show dedicated almost entirely to -- you guessed it -- sheep!
Before it started we had a chance to mingle with the ewes and rams chilling along the sides of the room (yes, that is a live ram smiling for the picture behind me).
The MC for the show was VERY energetic, introducing each type of sheep by having it run up the stage to its appropriate spot. Each place had a little dish of sheep food ready for them, but sometimes the sheep would get distracted on the way up the ramp and start munching on a dish only halfway up; a little tug on their collar got them the rest of the way up.
We got to see a sheep sheared, which is best told in the pictures... the sheep in question didn't seem to mind very much... she just sort of went along with it, but did seem fairly happy to be finished.
I think my favorite part of the show was when they brought out the sheep dogs (my dog Gully would LOVE it there). At first they were just barking at the sheep, but then started jumping up and running along the tops of them. At one point the Merino ram (whose name I recognized because REI socks are made from New Zealand Merino wool) stared down the dog, and it took him a while to hop past... though pretty docile creatures, I think even sheep can get annoyed at a certain point.
They brought out cows to be milked and lambs to be fed by audience members, and finished the show outside with a sheep herding demonstration. This was impressive -- the only things the guy would yell was "left" and "right"; the dogs / sheep figured out the rest.
Later that afternoon we went luging and zorbing... more explanation on that next post.

Cheers,

David

Beginnings...

Kia Ora and Hello all!

First, I must apologize for the lateness of this post. I realize that three weeks is a long time to go without an update. So despite the lag in time, I will begin at the beginning and go “step by step by step.”
My flight here was actually quite pleasant. They had a wide variety of entertainment on individual tv consoles and I was actually able to sleep on the plane (being aided by my very comfy travel blanket). After arrival, I was able to quickly gather up my bags and head through customs. Once through, I was met by the IFSA-Butler staff and the whole IFSA group was loaded on to a bus and taken to the Shakespear (yes, that is the spelling) National Park in Whangaraparaoa (wh is pronounced as an f in Maori).
At the park, we stayed in a dormitory-style lodge that was quite beautiful, and had a great view of the surrounding countryside. On the first day, even though we had arrived at 6am, the councilors did not let us rest. They took us on a long hike through the pouring rain and fields of cows, pigs, and (of course) sheep. The entire four-day orientation was exhausting but fun. The councilors alternated activities such as rugby, cricket, kayaking, park-wide scavenger hunts and mountain boarding with information sessions, quizzes on New Zealand, and group projects.
After three days at Whangaraparaoa we traveled southward, through Auckland, to a sacred Maori marae, or meeting grounds/temple. On the way we stopped at Mt. Cook, one of Auckland’s tallest inactive volcanoes (apparently there is a volcanic eruption in Auckland every 300 years… and the last one was 300 years ago… eee!). Staying at the marae was an amazing experience. To be accepted on to the marae you must go through a formal greeting process. You are called on to the marae (which specifically refers to the courtyard) by a specially designated woman. Your entire group must enter together and proceed slowly, with the women in front. Once seated outside the temple, two men from each group, the tangata whenua or hosts and the manuhiri or guests, give long speeches of welcome. This is followed by a hongi, the traditional Maori greeting where two people press together the nose and the forehead. Our dinner of meat and potatoes was prepared in the traditional Polynesian method of cooking it underground, which the Maori call a hauni. After dinner, a regional Maori dance group came to perform for us. They danced stick dances, weapon dances, the poi (performed by woman who swing and tap a white ball on a string), and the haka (the Maori war dance performed by men). They even had some the men from IFSA-Butler join in the haka! (though I must say that they were much less intimidating than the Maori dancers). That night we slept in the tupuna, or sacred temple. The red carvings on the outside of the temple represent the ancestors of that particular tribe, or iwi, of Maori.
The next morning we thanked our gracious hosts drove to a nearby beach to relax and cool off our feet, before finally heading into Auckland.

...to be continued...

Much love,

Alyse

Made it to Auckland!

Hello World!
I'll start off this little blog by saying I'm rather fond of the Southern Hemisphere. I have yet to observe water vortexing clockwise rather than counter-clockwise (or "anti-clockwise"); my experiences in Auckland have made other differences in orbit more relevant.
For example, when crossing a traffic circle, cars are moving clockwise, so they are therefore coming from the right. As for normal roads, I tell myself drivers are going to be on the left side, so I look to the right first, but I cannot for the life of me shake my intrensic desire to look left as well. Whenever I cross the street I look like I'm watching a freakishly fast tennis match.
Getting here was fairly uneventful. I crossed the international date line, which was exciting because I hadn't done it before, but at the end of the day it just brought about the end of the day faster than usual. I'm pleased that I was able to shorten my February by about 21 hours this year, which is already an appropriately abridged month, given its deppresing weather and semi-silent 'r'.
Nothing much to say about the photos for this post... I was just getting back my "shutter legs" and trying out some panning shots. I snapped a few while we were losing our minds of boredom at the airport, a few on the bus, and then a few in Tirau (where they apparently have a fascination of making large animals out of corrugated steel). We (Autralearn students) went straight to Rotorua for orientation the day we arrived, but I'm going to post those seperately since I'm working out the logistics of blogging and don't want to deal with lots of files at once.

That's it for now,
Cheers!


--David