Rotorua Trip

The next few posts on this blog are all from a trip we took to Rotorua a few weeks ago. The Activities department organized the trip and any interested students could join. My wife Robyn, and I went as group leaders and we had8 students with us and we really had a blast. Check out some of the photos of what we managed to do in just 2 days.

This photo shows the students who were on the trip, outside the Backpacker that we stayed at. Across the back is; Heiko, Nicole, Laura, Josefina, Patrizia, and in front is Tomoki, Marlene and Kazuki.

White Water Rafting

Our first activity on the Saturday morning was white water rafting on the Kaituna River. This is a short trip but it is grade 5 which means some pretty serious rapids. The trip ends with a drop over a 7 meter waterfall which is said to be the highest commercially ratfed waterfall anywhere in the world. This trip was great fun and really set the stage for what was to become a grteat weekend.

The Luge

Saturday afternoon was bitterly cold but we still headed off to the Gondolas and went up Mt Ngongotaha. The view over the city and the lake was great, and the luge rides were tremendous fun. Josefina would have had more fun if she had worked out how to use the brakes!!! But it was cold up there and eventually the weather chased us, one by one, off the luge track and into the cafe, where it was much warmer.

Tamaki Tours

On the Saturday evening we all went out to the Tamaki Brothers Maori Villiage to enjoy first hand, a Maori cultural experience. This evening included a traditional challenge and welcome, some time in the villiage and then a wonderful cultural performance of Maori song and dance, followed by a hangi, which is a meal prepared in the traditional cooking method of hot stones in an earth oven. There were more songs and fun afterwards as you can see!! Nicole was happy to join the group on stage and show us what she had learned during the evening.

Waiotapu

Sunday morning was a visit to the Waiotapu Thermal Valley. This is just one of several places around Rotorua where you can see the region's unique thermal activity. There is lots of steam, hot water, boiling mud and amazing colours all in a natural setting. We really enjoyed our visit there on a cold winter morning

Rainbow Springs

Rotorua is world famous for it's trout fishing and at Rainbow Springs you can get a really close look at some of the biggest rainbow trout you will ever see. These fish are free to come and go from this reserve out into the lake if they want to.

At this site we also visited the 'Kiwi Encounter' where we were able to look around a facility that is used to hatch and raise kiwi chicks, which are then released into the wild as part of New Zealand's Kiwi Protection Program

Agrodome

The final stop on our Rotorua trip was at the Agridome. This is like and on stage farming demonstration where you can learn a little bit about New Zealand's sheep farming industry. They show you lots of well behaved sheep, some very smart sheep dogs, and a sheep shearing exhibition. There was even a cow and a couple of ducks on stage too.

Swiss Night

We do a lot of different things on our regular Wednesday "Open Night". Last night our Swiss students made dinner - a delicious Swiss dinner -  Alpenmacaroni - a new dish for all the non-Swiss. Thanks Delia and Chantal - that was a great effort.  Last week was Korean night - who knows what next week will be - Chinese night, Saudi night, Italian night, Japanese night ....?

The rest of the evening was "talking English"  night of course - and everybody enjoyed that!

Black Water Rafting

As an alternative to our usual daily activity program we are starting to organize and run some weekend trips for interested groups of students to popular tourist destinations where we can find exciting things to see and do. One such recent trip was to go to Hamilton to watch a big rugby game, and then to travel a little further south to the Waitomo Caves where we took part in a Black Water Rafting trip

There had been lots of rain and the water levels in the cave were fairly high but this just made the whole adventure more exciting. It was also a bit cold but thick wetsuits during the trip and hot soup straight afterwards made it all alright.

We couldn't take too many photos right inside the cave but these ones will give you some idea of what this trip was like.

At the Rugby

Several students had asked me to organize a trip so they could see a top level rugby game while they were here in New Zealand. Rugby is a pretty big part of NZ culture so we thought a visit to a serious game would be a good idea.

We decided to go to Hamilton to see the 'Chiefs' play a major 'Super 14' game. As you can see it was a cold night and we even got a nice heavy shower of rain to remind us that rugby really is a winter sport.

Most of the students quickly learned to cheer at the right time and for the right team and we all had a pretty good time. Some of those with us that night continued to follow the Chiefs for the rest of their season and some even started to learn a bit about the game. I was impressed!!!