Staying on a New Zealand Sheep Farm

This is me learning to ride a quad bike

This is me learning to ride a quad bike

Today we are staying on a farm belonging to Rodney and Ange and their daughter Margie. The farm is 3000 acres and has about 4000 sheep. We met the sheep dogs and one of them was half retired. They are called Sue, Jess and Plug. You are not allowed to pet the working dogs unless they have worked hard, but you can pet Buddy who is the house dog.

This morning I went out on a quad bike, with the working dogs (and Buddy) on a trailer, to the shaving house where you shave sheep. Rodney sheared two sheep. One of them really needed to be shaved as it has very long wool.

In the afternoon we went jet boating. Jet boats don’t have a propeller, just a jet, so it can go in shallow water.

The fertiliser plane landing on the airstrip

The fertiliser plane landing on the airstrip

This was down the Wanganui River and we jet boated through the rapids. Someones canoe got smashed in half, we tried to help them rescue their canoe. They were ok.

We went swimming and we jumped off the rocks. There was a strong current so we had to swim strongly to get back to the shore.

The next morning we went to watch the airplane they use for fertilizing. The hills are so steep here and the farm so large they have to use a plane not a tractor.

Below is a video of us on the jet boat.

Hot Water Beach

Today we had to get up really early because we were going to hot water beach. It is called hot water beach because if you dig a hole in the sand in the right place it will fill up with hot water. You can only get the hot water when the tide is low which is why we had to get up early. It is hot because below the sand there are hot rocks which warm the water. When the water is warm it rises to the surface.

The first hole we dug was quite cold and then we found someone with a hot pool and we started to dig next door to them. The neighbouring pool was very hot, you could see the hot water flowing into it from underneath the sand.

When we put our hands under the sand of our pool, it was really hot. After a while the waves eliminated our pools with a big destroying splash. We went to get dry and then had a big breakfast of pancakes.

Later we went to Cathedral Cove, it is called that because there is a big stone arch at the beach. We went for a swim and then stood under a waterfall to shower after the swim.
In the evening I went for another swim and I helped Daddy collect mussels from the mussel rock and they were bigger than ones in England. We ate them for dinner.

Being in a Volcanic Eruption

Today I went to a museum and in the museum there was a shaking house. We didn’t realise it was a shaking house at first we just saw a sofa and the TV was on. There was a window with a view of a volcano and a town. The news was on. It was telling us about an eruption and how everyone should be leaving town. Please watch the video below, it is quite surprising.

We also found out there are 48 volcanoes in Auckland, the one we could see out of the window of the shakey house is called Rangitoto and it erupted 600 years ago. All these volcanoes are dormant but not extinct. This means they could erupt again!

Two days in Guangzhou China

When we started the plane ride we got a bag of goodies that we might need on the plane, like toothpaste, toothbrush, eye masks and ear-plugs. On the plane we had breakfast before we landed in China. The first thing we noticed about China was that it was very smoggy, because of all the cars and factories, because 19.4% of the people in the world (one in 5) live in China (we looked up the population and worked this out).

We could not work out what these animals were!

We could not work out what these animals were!

We went to the market and saw lots of animals, rabbits, dogs, terrapins, crabs, lizards, fishes, gerbils and mice, and they were all for sale. In the restaurants in China we saw on the menu crocodile, shark, abalone, beetles, eel, snake, live frogs and crabs!

We went to a bird park by going up in a cable car, there were white peacocks, normal peacocks, emu, parrots, orange ducks, pheasant, lots of doves, a seagull sitting on a roof fan. Then I watched a show about birds, there was a bird sliding down a slide, a bird hoisting a flag, a bird bowling, a bird tightrope walking, a bird cycling on a bicycle, going on roller skates, and riding on a scooter. And if you held up a note or money a bird will come and take it from you. There was a bird band and they were all parrots.

A Parrot sitting on my shoulder

This is a picture of me with one of the parrots on my shoulder.

In the orchid garden we went to a traditional Chinese Tea House where we had traditional Chinese tea. The toilets were a hole in the ground and the sink was rather strange. The part was decorated for the Chinese new year, and I went on a roller coaster and it was very fast and twisty.

There are lots of people in China and lots of people spit. Nothing is said in English. We went to a Bhuddist temple and monks lived there. They had smart phones!  Everyone was bowing and praying and lighting incense which stunk. We got around by taxi because we could not find the train stations.

After two days in China we went back to the airport to fly to New Zealand.