Monday, December 29, 2008

December 30

December 30. Early start. Took a tour bus from Auckland to Rotorua. Terrific views of the countryside and history from our tour guide. We saw varios parts of Auckland and the country - including cattle, dairy, and horse ranches. The country is lush and green.We learned a bit about Maori culture as we toured through a historic battleground in Rangiriri and learned of the land wars between the Europeans and Maori.Next, we toured the Waitomo glowworm caves. The caves were interesting. We walked into the caves and then rode in a boat on the river at the bottom of the caves. We were able to best see the glowworms while on the boat. The glowworms spend 9-11 months eating and maturing into flies that live for 2-3 days, reproduce and are eaten by the other glowworms. In Cambidge, we learned that in the Southern hemisphere, race horses have a universal birth date of August 1 and that except when training, race horses spend their time in the field. Arrived in Rotorua. Will explore it tonight and tomorrow.

1 comment:

  1. Hi All, I like the universal birthdate for horses since it's also my birthday. I've been looking at the Google Earth satellite image and the smoke from the volcano of White Island looks like it was going pretty high into the air when the picture was taken. Can you see it from Rotorua?
    Rick T

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