Thermal pools

 This is me with my cousins, Camryn (left) and Maya (right).

 

 The thermal pools were so hot and with all the minerals in the water, it changed into this color.

 

 I still wonder about this, it is also a thermal pool, but it is neon green.

 

 I remember that this thermal pool was called Painter's Pallet because there were different minerals in the water that made it different colors in specific areas in the giant pool, as you can see in the picture. 

 

 On one side its clear, but on this side it was steaming. It smelled, horribly, like rotten eggs.

 

I forgot were this was in the thermal pools, but it looks cool with the greenish color circle that is in the middle.

 

 

 

These are the Thermal pools on New Zealand. They are in different areas, but mostly on the North Island. They smell horrible because of the sulfur, but are said to be good on the skin with all the different minerals. In some towns with thermal pools, they make them in to pools for tourist to relax in. I didn't want to go because I thought that I would smell like rotten eggs when I got out. I could have washed the smell off, but my hair can hold a smell for the longest of times, so I had no interest in going. Back in the 1700, people from all over the world came to see these special springs to bathe. Most of them were soldiers from New Zealand or allies that were based there. Even before England took over, the Maori bathed in the springs in tiny villages. I went to one of the villages and saw all of the homes and springs. They told us that some of the houses were abandoned  because of springs coming from underneath the houses. This is dangerous for the people because if you are too close for a long time it can kill you. They even cook their corn and other foods in the springs. Their corn is the best I have ever had in forever.

The Moeraki Boulders

 

 

Going to the site of the Moeraki Boulders.

A really tall one, taking picture with Mom, Wendy, and me.

Mom and I still staring at boulder, Wendy watching us stare.

Sorry about it being sideways, me on top of boulder, with a little of Dad's help getting me there.

 Dad pretending to be hatching out of a egg.

 



 Me pushing boulder.

 

Mom and I.

 

Wendy just staring at the ground.

 

 

 

 

 

Don't these boulders look like they were marbled? Well, these are the Moeraki boulders, a series of boulders that are perfectly round. It is weird that they are this shape, but it is true.

 

 

They were a legend that the Maori told about a boat called the Arai Te Uru. It traveled around the bay, but then sunk leaving the reef as the hull and the seeds on board the boat that they carried with them, as the Moeraki Boulders.

 

Then there was the scientific explanation. It started with clams and other creatures who lived in the sand thousands of years ago. They died and stayed in the same place for centuries. Growing around them was mud and dirt cementing together making a round like ball. Then, the ground in front of them broke off into the ocean and it became cliff. After that, the dirt and ground were slowly eroding away to the boulder, which then fell out of the cliff and rolled onto the beach.

Funny story time (Bathrooms and boys)

      I am now back in Tahiti and boy, is it hot! It was at night and since we were in the marina we had to use the bathrooms in the marina that are only for boaters. You needed a key to get in that only the people in the marina can get. Some of the boaters are locals who only live on boats and some were families. So, I needed to take a shower and I walked up to the bathroom door. Well, the light in the bathroom was on and last time Mom went in a local lady was in the bathroom, weirdly just sitting on the sink counter. So, when I saw that the light was on I thought it was the lady, although it scared me a little at the thought of having a person in the bathroom just listening to me shower. But, I sucked it up and walked in to find something much worse.


     A teenage boy around my age was just sitting on the sink counter. I stared at him, just processing the situation. He said something to me in French, but he didn't sound threatening and I slowly closed the door. I looked up to see that it was, in fact, the ladies. So, why was there a boy? I turned around and began to speed walk back to the boat. Still confused, I bumped in to Mom, who asked me why I wasn't in the shower. After I told her the situation and pleaded that I should have a shower tomorrow, Mom and I marched into the bathroom, but the boy was gone.
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     I was relieved that he was gone, but still wondered why he was there. I still didn't want a shower because I was afraid that he would be back, so we walked out the door. While we were walking I saw him again, but he had friends with him. Then it hit me; a dare. Maybe the other boys dared him to go in and wait for a woman or girl to show up and then run for it. I was still a little shocked but the next day I had a shower and I never saw the boy again.

The Weka

Front of a Weka

Side of a Weka

 

 

 

    When we were in Jackson's Retreat, we stayed in a nice, little holiday camp. It was pouring rain that day and we camped under a little  hut (it was so cute!). Anyway, I was looking at the chart of birds in the lounge that only have the South Island birds and I saw a chicken-like brown bird which had the bottom half of a kiwi and the top half that had a long neck and a short beak.

 

    Then I heard my mom say, "Hey, there's a kiwi out here!"

 

    I walked over to the door to see the same bird that was on the charts. I laughed and said," That's not a kiwi that is a Weka."

 

    That same night, Dad went to our tents to get some food when sitting on top of the bin of food was a Weka, trying to peck its way through the plastic. In the morning when I woke up, I heard a low thumping noise. I went outside to see, thinking it was the Weka pecking at the bin again. But, it was just the Weka making a low thumping sound in their throats. After we left in the car I said to my parents, "Those Wekas are mischievousness and curiosity in one little brown ball." 



New Zealand birds

I went to a bird conservatory and I saw a lot of different species of birds. Here are some of the birds that I saw there. I have seen a lot of birds in New Zealand.

This bird is called a Kea. When I was there, they had a kea that was very funny. It came out of its little hut and started to crawl ( literally) to us and looked straight at us through the glass. It was kinda creepy and weird, but I was fine with it. They are endangered animals because they are hard to breed and there are few females in the population.

This bird is called a Paradise Duck. Its not endangered, but its really interesting to me. This duck was at a pond were they give people free duck food to feed the ducks. They were bigger than the normal ducks in the pond and the males were quite aggressive.

A lot of you may know about this bird. It's the Kiwi. It is more endangered than any of the other bird species of New Zealand. It's just too delicious to animals and very vulnerable. It only comes out at night. I saw a wild one; one that wasn't in a zoo. It was so cool!!

 

 

I thought that leaving something funny might make my blog not so boring.

Here are some funny bird pictures.

Enjoy!!!

 

 

Maybe I put too many! Oops, I got carried away.

Waitangi day

Today is a very special day for New Zealand. Its the day of when the British and the Maori had peace with each other. So its sorta like the 4th of July, but they just decided to have peace between one another.

The date is February, 6, 1840 when they signed the treaty of peace.
This is a picture of one of the 40 Maori chiefs that came to the ceremony, signing the treaty.

 

The person who wanted to have a peace treaty was the governor William Hobson. But the person that made it happen was Resident James Busby, he called the 40 chiefs over and the treaty was signed by all of them.

This is William Hobson's house where the treaty was signed.

I was there and there is a gigantic field in the front of the house.

 

 

 

They wanted the rest of New Zealand's chiefs to sign the treaty too, so they made nine copies of the treaty and sent them all over New Zealand. After, all 500 chiefs signed the treaty.

 

 

This is one of the nine treaties that were made.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Maori came up with the flag of New Zealand and a symbol too.

 

Here is the symbol of New Zealand.

Here is New Zealand's flag. It has the British flag in the corner.

 

 

 

Thanks for viewing!

 

 

 



Butterflies

I did research on butterflies when I went to a butterfly exhibit and I learned a lot.
There was the paper kite butterfly, my favorite.

 

From: Southeast Asia 

Size: 9-10 cm
Color: Yellow and Black
Habit:
They like to stay in groups with the same kind of butterflies and they like cool places.

Then there are the Great egg-flies.



From: Madagascar, Asia, and Australia
Size: 7-9 cm
Color: black, blue, and white
Habit:
They like to land on people and are very territorial.


There are the Asian swallowtail.

From:Asia
Size: 10-13 cm
Color: black and white
Habit:
These little guys are very playful with other butterflies and love flying at fast speeds.


That's all I gathered while I was in there but I learned a lot about the beautiful creatures.

Thanks for viewing!

Horse camp

 

 

I went to this awesome horse camp for a week and I enjoyed it. The only thing that I had a problem with was well, everyone had a problem with, but it was the food. I didn't know if they were trying to kill us on purpose or not. We had to train for eight hours a day and the first thing in the morning they gave us toast. Ok, yeah that sounds fine, right? Well, for lunch, after we had four hours of hard training, they give us small portions of spaghetti on toast. I was kinda annoyed, but I thought that small breakfast and lunch with a filling dinner, was what they were planning.

So, I cooled off, but after another four hours of hard training we went in to dinner and guess. what. we. got. Yes, you guessed right.... toast wrapped around sausages. That pushed me off the edge. One of my classmates saw how annoyed I was and came up to me. She said " But at least we get ketchup," holding up the red bottle. Good grief, we really did sound as if we were in boot camp. I didn't know how long the girl was there, but I guess for a while because she was as thin as paper.

 The only thing that kept us alive was the magical, wonderful, life saving..... candy store. I praised mom for giving me a lot of money because I bought a lot so did the other girls, but we lived. That was the only downer.

Now to the awesome part, we did treks and jumping with other cool stuff, too. I had a black horse named Jazz. She was "face shy". ( "Face shy" means that, a horse does not like to be touched on the face or have something fast move around their face.) She was very obedient and nice. Most of the time. I think I spoiled her but, who cares, I had a blast.

I did fall off Jazz two times. The first time I fell off when we where in a canter. ( Cantering is the closest speed to galloping or right under it.) The second was when I went over a jump. Both hurt a lot, but I sucked it up and kept going and after a while the pain disappeared. After the week, I sadly said goodbye to my two friends with awesome names. Their names where Roshni and Lilith. The best horseback friends ever.

After I got home I swear I lost a pound or two and I was craving meat. So, I was more like a real life Gollum, I guess.

This is Jazz and me.

This is the full body of Jazz, she is one of the biggest on the farm.

 

Me, after horse camp.

Funny story time: The fall of a life time

How many of you have fallen off a horse?
Well, my mom fell off a horse when we were riding on the beach. Her horse was startled by some thing and began to bolt. She fell off and was hung by her foot which was caught in the stirrup for a couple of seconds. I didn't see exactly what happened because I was galloping in front of her but when I looked behind I almost had a heart attack. I mean these horses were part Clydesdales. I  started to gallop back to her to see how she was, but then I started to shift sideways. I realized what was happening and did an emergency dismount and by the time I got to mom my saddle was hanging on the horse's belly. Mom's shoe was lost because the horse ran off. When it returned to join the herd her shoe was gone. She got new running shoes which I didn't think were her type because when she lifted up her feet to show the bottom, dad and I almost went blind. They were bright neon pink and  green.  I thought I would never see again!