Executive On Fenton Rotorua

... Cultural Experience,it was a great night out ,warriers on an ancient war canue,maori concert and Hangi dinner,they cook the food under ground on rocks for hours,lovely tastes through out the meal,then on to a nature trail ......yes in the dark,had to endure the whole tour so we could see a few kiwis and sure as hell we did.
Off to Auckland in a few hours so hopefully catch up then if not it'll be LA.
Take care

... to-do New Zealand' items ticked. Our final day in Rotorua we started off early catching the bus out to agro-ventures and the Zorbing area. The place was eerily quiet and also we're great blaggers, so we got a 2 for 1 on the 'Schweeb' (a capsule powered cycle attached to curved/intertwining steel girders). You race not only the clock but the schweeb opposite. It was actually good fun and a nice warm up to the main event, ZORBING! Originally we had planned to do the zig ...

A bus came to pick us up and take us to the Mitai Maori Village. First we were all seated at our tables and our host introduces himself and tells us about the night. He was a very entertaining and colorful Maori man. He asked about what countries were represented and for each he had a greeting in their native tongue. In our group we had 15 nations represented. From that point ...

... the tour. So we got up at 6 in the morning and drove about 90 minutes to where the boat departs from (a town called Whakatane). After a bit of a delay (A car broke down on the ONLY bridge connecting the town with the rest of the country) we headed out to sea. After about 30 minutes however the tour company decided to turn around as the sea was just too rough and we would not be able to make landfall at White Island. Plus it would have taken another 2 hours to get there and over half ...

... a 'living village' called - if you think South Indian names are long, try this - Te Whakharewarewa o te Ope Taua a Wahiao. Being a must-do on the tourist circuit, this place had the hallmarks of being a shameless choreographed show that should be avoided at all costs. However we gave in to peer-tourist pressure. It turned out to be a pretty informative session about Maori living. Like Hawaiians, the Maori people are in the ...

... is the NZ sweet potato and they usually serve the fries with a chive sour cream or aoli. It's different then our sweet potatoes. hard to explain. Best experience: Hmmm.. we had so many different ones but the Zorbing was definitely fun and different! So... yes, yes. we have been very negligent with our blog this past month. So we are behind with our word contest. I'll go ahead and reveal the first two answers and then let everyone have a go at this week's entry ...

... when he first started running but filmed here for the finish of the run (or something like that - cunning edits and stuff like that). After the tour of the Hobbiton village, we went to the Woolshed for a sheep shearing demonstration followed by bottle feeding pet lambs. Once we were back in Rotorua, I did a quick tour of the touristy things: Government Gardens, the Bath House, some stinky pools, the Sulphur Wildlife Refuge on Lake Rotorua. H.x

Day 2 we wanted to go over to Agroventures. We started off by doing the freefall extreme which simulates two minutes of freefall. We suited up and attempted to fly. It quite difficult to stay in the wind as you had to balance your body by changing your arm and leg positions. They had us go barefoot so needless to say our feet were completely numb after the 2 minutes were up. It ...

... steam. Our guide Anita showed us around to the hangi (steam boxes) and naturally boiling pools where they lower their food in cheese cloth bags to cook. She told us about the signifigance of the village's ancestral meeting house, and gave us a demonstration of how they use the amazingly useful Flax plant to make skirts. We saw a performance as well which was really a highlight. The signing and chanting, in addition to games and gestures ...

... larvae of a fly (hence the equivalent of maggots) that lack an anus, but to make up for this flaw have glowing poo that attracts flying insects in caves or grottos by fooling them into believing they are flying towards the sunlight. The unsuspecting insects then get caught in the sticky ...