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!