All-in-one Eco Tour

December 3, 2010

Today we did the coast-to-coast Eco tour. What is this all about, you might ask. Well, let me explain the whole day to you. Stu and Donna run this tour and Stu is the driver of the van who picked us up at our hotel this morning at 9:30. It was us and an older couple who were originally from new York and had just gotten off a 20 day cruise, Mike and Barb. They were great fun and reminded me of my aunt and uncle.

Our first stop was at the aritaki visitor center, which is basically an introduction to the waiteke range, which is a sub-tropical rainforest. We learned about some plants and maori culture.

Next was a stop at craftworld, which was a great store that sold nothing but new Zealand made products. I was very happy in that store...

Then, we stopped at a wine cellar and did a little wine tasting (not quite as good as the wine down on the south island was, but still good).

Next, it was lunch time at the honey shop. After we ordered our lunch we got to taste some amazing new Zealand honey. Lunch was great!

Next stop was to see the gannet colony (cool birds that only live in a few places) who live on the cliffs by this beautiful beach. The scenery reminded me of the south island.

Finally, we got to Stu and Donna's farm, where Donna was waiting and took over the tour from there. Being part Maori, she gave us a history lesson and gave us a tour of their house to see how many people on NZ live. Then we went outside to the farm to meet and feed some sheep and to learn about the sheep farming industry, along with learning about different plants and trees ( they also plant a treet every tour to offset any carbon footprint). They also had many other animals as pets, including birds and guinea pigs. Then we got to feed the little orphaned lambs their milk in a bottle. I got to feed Pinky, whom I had been following his progress on facebook. They were very cute. We also found out that sheep don't say "baaaaa", they actually say "maaaaa".

Once we saw the outside farm, Donna took us back in the house, where we had a little tasting of some new Zealand foods, along with coffee or tea.

Afterwards, Stu drove us back to the city. It was a great day out.

When we got back to out hotel, we walked down to the waterfront and had some dinner. Then, we went to the sky city complex for a little slot machine action for me. I played for ten minutes, won 150 bucks, then quit. We went up the sky tower after that...


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