WanderlustandWhimSea

Yellow with Attitude

New Zealand treated us to some lovely early fall weather and we took advantage with a Bike ride in Napier and a Tryke ride in Rotarua.  In Napier we biked around the seashore and it was heaven, even on a 3-gear bike. Of course, we stopped to check out the first watering hole and enjoyed some local beverages. The Tryke ride was at the other end of the spectrum, as we sped around town with a local who knew everyone, we started to catch on to the royal wave as we were treated like celebrities.

Spending time in New Zealand’s Port’s, we’ve learned a lot about their economy. Exports in order of importance: 1. Dairy 2. Meat 3. Logs. Every place we have stayed in New Zealand we were given a pint of milk as a welcome gift. This seemed a bit unusual but I guess they have a lot of excess milk and it tastes really good. We can certainly attest to the massive logging industry as nearly every port is dominated by logs as far as you can see. We’ve been told they are planting 2-3 for every 1 harvested, but the trees they are cutting are 25 years old so somewhere this doesn’t seem sustainable.  We also learned a lot about Yellow Eyed Penguins who are only found in New Zealand. We went to a reserve where they are being protected. There are only 1600 Yellow Eyed Penguins in the world, and they are at risk as an endangered species. We were lucky see several in the Penguin Hospital where they are helped and then released back into the wild. Of course we also saw seals and a bunch of sheep, this one was getting his very first shearing.

Finally, and sadly, our ship was in Christchurch the day before the Terrorist Attack on the 2 Mosques. I’m sorry for those knew my itinerary, and texted or emailed concern about my status, that I wasn’t responsive. We were out of Wi-Fi range for 3 days. Christchurch is accustomed to natural disasters like earthquakes, but they are  unaccustomed to Terrorist Attacks, the aftershocks are still rumbling.