Final Days in New Zealand

Queenstown Jet Boat Adventure ~ by Jovan

This blog post will be about the boat ride we took. On this boat ride they showed us some of the places that movies were filmed. If you have seen the two towers lord of the rings film, when Gandalf and the balrog are fighting on the mountain, we saw that mountain and we saw the misty mountains. My favorite part of this boat ride was when our driver (Craig) put his hand up and pretended to swing a lasso and with the boat he did a 360-degree turn. In the middle of the boat ride we stopped and went on land we walked around, and we all found a stick (Tejas, Nix, and me) and we took a picture and said what Gandalf said

                                             YOU SHALL NOT PASS!

The story that Craig told us about the river we jetted down with mountains that have real jade in them was long ago there lived a giant and this giant ate the maidens of the town. So, one the kings daughter got taken. The king said that whomever got his daughter out of the giant’s cave could marry her. One man who was not as wealthy as the king and loved his daughter, went out to save her. He found her  tied to the giant. He tried to cut the rope and he could not so the girl cried and cried. Her tears broke the rope! They got married and lived happily ever after. There is a jade mountain and it is not allowed to be mined that is shaped like a giants head. The story says that the giant watches over the jade stone. 

 Queenstown Luge and Tiki Trail ~ by Tejas

In South Island New Zealand we went to a place called Queenstown Skyline, Gondola, and

Luge.  The Luge is a track where you race down a mountain side on a go-cart and then you take a ski lift to the top of the mountain and then you come down (pretty much skiing with wheels).  The one thing I didn’t like was the hike up the mountain. We started on one trail that would take 45 min to a 1 hour of hiking up.  Then we cut through a wood into a forest which led us to a new trail they would take a little less time. The problem with this new trail was that it had to many rock and wood stairs. The path was dangerous because rocks fall which can sometimes block the stairs.  After the walk I felt like I couldn’t do anything, I was so tired and hot.  Once we got up there, we bought a pack of 20 rides for the luge tracks.  We took a lesson on how to work the go cart then we went as many times as we could.  When you were riding if you pay attention to the road the view is great there because you get the view of the whole city from the top of the mountain onto Queenstown. Jovan and I wanted to race my dad so we only looked at the view a few times.  In the end we had lots of fun and got some good exercise.    

NZ Glow Worms

Te-Anau Glow Worm Caves ~ by Jovan

In our next New Zealand adventure, we took a boat to a glow worm cave. First thing that you should know is that glow worms are not actually worms, they are actually a short-lived type of flying insect. When glow worms are in their larval stage that is the only time they eat. The glow worm has four stages:

1.      They live in the egg for 20-24 days

2.      Next they are a larva which is when the glow worm makes a nest and eats

3.      Then the glow worm starts to fly

4.      Finally the females die quickly after laying their eggs (1 day) and the males die of exhaustion in  5 days

Glow worms have these things called fishing lines, so they make a sticky line from their bodies that hangs down from their nest. Other insects can’t see it but then they fly into it and then their stuck and it gets eaten by the glow worms. The experience was so nice we got to see the glow worms glow (because they were hungry) and we got to see the lines to but they were so thin you could barely see them all in all it was way cool and be sure to look at the pictures.

Penguins and Puzzles In NZ

Puzzling World ~ by Tejas

We flew from North Island to South Island New Zealand. We went to a dazzling called Puzzling World.  It’s a amazing place that is literally made of puzzles.  There were four main puzzles the Great Maze, the Puzzle Room, the Illusion room, and the Tilted Tower. 

The Great Maze is a maze with four towers on each corner.  On each tower there is the real entrance and the fake entrance.  You must get to the real entrance all the way up to the top and then do that three more times than get to the exit and then you can say you completed the great maze.  Me and my family did a challenge who could finish the maze first.  It was me and Jovan vs. Mom, Dad, and Nix.  In the end me and Jovan won because we did all the steps.

The Puzzle Room is a room with a bunch of tables and a restaurant.  On each table there were four complex puzzles.  One puzzle was a puzzle with Kiwi birds.  Me and my Dad did this kiwi bird puzzle and we got it first try but it took a while.  We also had a little bit of help from one of the staff.  In the end we finished it. 

The Illusion room is a room full of optical illusions.  These are like objects that when you move they turn or when you look at this picture from two different areas one time it’s smiling and the next it’s frowning.  As you walk through the illusion room you will see the hall of faces.  There were face as that looked at you if you looked a different direction.  The faces were Winston Churchill, Mother Teresa, Albert Einstein, and Vincent Van Gogh. 

The Illusion room eventually leads you into the Tilted Tower.  This Tower is literally tilted like if you were to stand in the middle of one room you would fall.  You got to watch water move backwards and see what’s would happen if your building was tilted. In the end we were all puzzled on how they did it.  This adventure through the puzzling world was truly amazing.     

Blue Penguin Colony Reserve ~ by Nix

We drove three hours from Christchurch to Oamaru, to the Blue Penguin Colony reserve we had to dress  really warm and meet there at 08:15PM once the sun starts to set the penguins come back to the reserve for the night they swim to shore and climb up the hill. They all walked past us and they were cute and small and there wings were blue, which is why we call them blue penguins. My mom thought they were so cute, she wanted to take one home to Canada and name it Pixy, and give the penguin my room and bed, but you were not allowed to take the animals, it is illegal.





Here are some facts about Blue Penuins. 
1. It is the smallest penguin of all penguins
2. A grown up blue peguins weighs 2.6 pounds
3. They do most of their work in the night and sleep in the day
4. They can only be found in Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania

Maori Cultural Experience

Our Maori Cultural Experience ~ by Jovan 

While we were in New Zealand we went to a Maori dinner experience. The Māoris came to New Zealand with settlers from Polynesia, who arrived in New Zealand with waves of Waka (canoe) voyages somewhere between 1320 and 1350. We learned about the Maori people, and how they got to New Zealand. They performed their songs, showed the clothes they wear, dances, and how they fight.  The Māori are the indigenous inhabits of New Zealand. Maori define themselves by their iwi (tribe), Hapū (sub-tribe), Manunga (mountain) and awa (river). The Maori are a Polynesian people most closely related to eastern Polynesian. Maori speak fluent English. Maori are superstitious and religious believing in gods and the spirits of ancestors. The Maori have a language that is called the te reo that they also can speak. One of the words are Kia Ora the meaning is hi or hello. Everyone in New Zealand say hello with saying Kia Ora.

Hobbiton

What is Hobbiton ~by Tejas

Named after the city in the Shire this is where the outside of the Shire in the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit was filmed.  All the Hobbit holes are implanted into the ground on a hill.  You can see the party tree and the lake in Hobbiton.  The books were written in 1938 by a guy named J.R.R Tolkien and the movies filmed in 1998 and 1999 were directed by Peter Jackson.  For those of you who take the Lord of the Rings against Harry Potter is a battle the Lord of the Rings are older and have more adventure.  It all started when a helicopter that was carrying Peter Jackson over part of New Zealand was carrying him and he saw a beautiful place of land and decided to do his movie set here.  Usually people take down their set and leave the land open but the people who did Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit decided to keep it up and then people decided to make tours to tour where every thing was done and that’s what we did.  Now 650,000 people visit the set every year.  It’s a beautiful scene from the very top of the hill from Bag End (The Main Character house).  I’ve mentioned the word Hobbit a few times before.  A Hobbit is a character from the Lord of the Rings and is below 5’5”.  In real life you had to be between 3ft to 5’5” or else you weren’t aloud to be a hobbit.  A place over the bridge was called the Green Dragon Inn.  This is the bar of Hobbiton where the people would stay for a drink.  At the Green Dragon Inn my brothers had a non-alcoholic drink and my parents had a alcoholic cider.  I threw up on the car ride so I was only aloud to have water.  In the end against all movies and books Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit beats every thing and do it with greatness. Now that you are all up to date, Jovan will write about our trip to the set down below.

Visiting the Hobbiton Movie Set ~ by Jovan

We visited the Hobbiton Movie Set Tour in Rotorua. This is where the lord of the rings and Hobbit films were filmed. When we got to Hobbiton we went to the gift shop there were so many cool things that we got carried away from getting to our bus on time. We bought a Gandalf sitting statue for my dad’s desk, and my mom bought a Christmas ornament for our tree and got the famous sign that says: no admittance except for party business. Luckily, they gave us ticket to a seat on to the next bus. We saw all the hobbit holes and out most favorite one is Bilbos hole. We also saw the house of Sam Wise Gamgey and some of you might think that Froto in the Lord of The Rings films that he was the hero but no, Sam was the hero of the movies. And one thing that we learned was that when Sam hugs his daughter in the Return of The King film that is his real daughter. 

New Zealand Adventures

Waiheke Island - by Jovan

We took a boat from Auckalnd to Waiheke Island. It is New Zealand’s most densely populated island. The island is very hilly with a few flat areas. It has 9250 permanent residents and an estimated 3400 residents with holiday homes. Waiheke island has 9 beaches. We visited one of the beaches named Shelly beach. It has a million shells, we have never seen so many before, it seemed like there was more shells than sand so we collected a few. Some of the shells were rings, some broken, and some with different colors and shapes. We also visited the Cable Bay Vineyards. My parents tried wine and me and my brothers played Monopoly Deal. We had pizza for lunch and we hiked for one and a half hours along the side of the island toward the ferry to go back. It was a long day, we got back to our hotel late at night.

Glass Bottom and Snorkeling Adventure - Tejas

We drove to Hahei which took two and a half hours from Auckalnd. There we went on an Glass Bottom Boat adventure. This starts out like a normal boat ride, but then when we got further out into the ocean the bottom of the boat rises and its all glass, so you can see down into the ocean while we were moving.

On the glass bottom boat, we saw a bunch fish and an Eagle Ray.  At the beginning we saw a lot of tiny fish and we saw an eel move but we only got a glimpse at the back of it, but as we got further out, we saw more fish we saw a fish called a snapper.  Snappers are fish with dots that glow underwater.  Then that’s when we saw it the Eagle Ray an Eagle Ray is smaller than a Sting Ray which is smaller than the biggest one the Manta Ray.  It looks like its not that deadly, but its stingers hurt really bad the guy told us.  Its wingspan can reach up to 2 ½ meters long.  We drove around Cathedral Cove which is one of the most visited places in all New Zealand.  Me and my dad went snorkeling. Jovan went in but found it to cold.  At first, I was scared because the guy said that there was jellyfish in these waters (and as we know I'm not lucky with them) but I was able to face my fear, go in and have good time well doing it.  We also learned  most of the small beaches and rocks were formed with volcanic rock. It was a good time!

Kia Ora from New Zealand!

All About New Zealand ~ by Jovan

We are spent two weeks in New Zealand so we have a lot of things to catch up on. 

The total size of New Zealand is 268,680 square km. The population of New Zealand is 4.700 million (ah… just saying that that’s kinda a big number). Some of the major cities that we went to are Auckland and Queenstown. The capitol city is Wellington. Two of the biggest industries in New Zealand are mining and fishing. New Zealand officially became an independent country in 1947.

The first people that came here are the Maori people. They were settlers from Eastern Polynesia who came to New Zealand in waves. In the Maori language to say hello is Kia Ora. Everywhere we went everyone would say Kia Ora to say hi to us, which also means healthy life to you.There are two parts of New Zealand. North and South Island. A common symbol and an animal you can only find in New Zealand is the kiwi bird. The kiwi bird is a flightless bird. The average kiwi bird egg weighs 300 grams. 

There is another common symbol in New Zealand, it is called the silver fern. It is grown everywhere in New Zealand. Its feather is the symbol for the rugby team that they play with. For those who don’t know rugby it is football but a little different. 

Auckland Whale and Dolphin Safari ~ by Nix

We first landed on North Island in Auckland. When we were in Auckland we went on Whale and Dolphin Safari. We went on a big boat with 50 other people and it was 5 hours in the ocean. Tejas, Jovan, and I got super wet because we stood at the nose of the boat when it was leaving and the good thing is that we eventually moved and dried off.   When we were out on the boat we saw birds that can fly but were sitting on the water. That means that there is an animal under it. We saw birds that would fly into the water like bullets and eat the fish on the top of the water. We saw a lot of dolphins, and three of them were swimming with our boat.  I named the 3 of them Joey, Pooey, and Doey,  so Joey is the baby, Doey is the mommy, and Pooey is the daddy.