Day 30 (Feb 20)

Tauranga, New Zealand is a beautiful small resort town in the north island. It is also a birthplace of kiwifruit. We also learned something about “kiwi” in New Zealand. The kiwi is the national bird. It can’t fly and it comes out at night. The Kiwi is the people of New Zealand. The fruit of the kiwi is called kiwi fruit. We had a wonderful shore excursion of “Redwoods Treewalk, Geothermal Reserve & Maori Home Visit”. California Redwoods were introduced to Tauranga 100 years ago. Redwoods are too soft to have any practical use so someone had the great idea to build a treewalk suspended high in the ancient redwoods. It is about 700 meter long and 20-40 meters high in air. It is a popular tourist place. It is our first time to do treewalk. We had a great time.

Then we went to the Whakarewarewa Thermal Reserve to watch the soaring Pohutu Geysers. The geysers were wonderful but can’t compare to our own Yellowstone geysers. We also saw a kiwi living in a dark room within the conservation center.

The tour also took us to a Maori village to have a lunch in a Maori home. The village is located within the geothermal area. The steaming was everywhere. At some locations, they fenced out the boiling waters inside the holes on the ground. It was just fascinating. They prepared lunch on the steamers from the geothermal. After lunch, they had a traditional dance in the church for us. The Maori home visit definitely is one of the best experiences we have had so far.

We went out again after a quick late lunch. We did a walk around Maungatapu mountain. Tauranga also has impressive beach front houses. We also saw two stingrays.