New Plymouth

After leaving Hamilton, we debated on the whims of the rain gods, and decided to travel southwest to the west coast and visit New Plymouth. Just beyond New Plymouth is Mt Taranaki, and snowcapped volcano. If the rain gods were nice to us, we would be able to see the mountain. Unfortunately, we had a nice journey, but only got to see the foothills.

New Plymouth is a cute city. We stopped and wandered about for a while and had lunch there. I think that I had my best ever hamburger.  Lois had poured over the map and things to do, and found a Rhododendrum Preserve a few km outside of town, and on the general route home.  It was in the volcanic foothills, and I hoped that this stop would give the clouds time to give up and disappear. The park was beautiful, but it rained while there, and continued for the next several hours.

I had decided to try to get gas at a low cost. We had driven the whole way from Wellington to Cody's on one tank, so I wasn't too worried about fuel, but after New Plymouth, we didn't see any low cost stations for a long way. When we finally approached Whanganui, my gas gage had changed from low fuel, and showing how many km until zero to "gas up immediately". Luckily I met my low price goal at a station on the outskirts of town. I had a coupon for that brand that gave me 18 cents off per liter. So I saved $5, and got an ulcer....

We spent the night at North Palmerston, then wandered east over to Highway 2 to visit our young missionaries and inspect their flats. They are so dedicated to what they are doing. The first 2 elders are both from Samoa and one barely speaks english. In fact, they actually are able to take lessons on English and take a proficiency test.

We must have settled into New Zealand life, as it was great to be home again. And it did feel like home.

Small cove just before New Plymouth, great camping area when it warms up.

New Plymouth

Just think, Australia is just over the horizon. Only 6 hours by air. 

 The following is the Rhododendrum Park. These come in tiny plants, and big trees and every size in between. It was amazing.  We were the only ones there (naturally). But we are finding that rainy days are fun too. A body doesn't melt. :)

Beautiful farms along the coast.

Best shot of Mt. Taranaki of the day.

This is what we had hoped to see. 

Hamilton Temple Experience

On Tuesday, September 27, we left Cody and JoEllen's and headed south to Hamilton. We found a cute motel, Camelot on Ulster Inn to stay. We went to the Temple on Wednesday and Thursday. It was a great experience, to see how many of our new friends had taken a week off, during the kid's 2 week fall break, to travel hours to the temple. They have small apartments for rent next to the temple, which many took advantage of, to save money. It was also gratifying to see the ward and stake leaders being in charge of many of the duties in the temple. One couple worked the baptistry all week, while the youth did multiple baptisms during the week.  It would be great to see this kind of dedication in the US.

The Temple is very beautiful. It was the 3rd temple built outside the USA, in the 1950's. It was built with volunteer labor, and is really quite small. Only one endowment session can run at a time. They only do 5 or 6 sessions a day. Because the Church used to have a high school next to the Temple, which was converted into the first New Zealand MTC (now it is in Auckland), there is a lot of land available for growth. They are currently building a new Stake Center there, and a museum of the history of the Church in New Zealand.

 I believe that if Gpa Burch (Lois' dad) had come here and seen these cattle grazing on such lush land, with no irrigation, and seldom below freezing in the winter, and only 80's in the summer, with a temple in the background, he would never have returned to Utah.

 Storms all around

This is Rangi Parker. She has collected photo's and missionary journals and other data for the past 30 years of the growth of the Church in New Zealand. Most of it is from the perspective of the missionaries who traveled here from the USA. From their photos and missionary journals, she has been able to help local members, mostly Maori, find pictures of their ancestors and family history lines. The Maori's history was a verbal history, and the early missionaries who learned the Maori language would write down the family histories. The Maori's often couldn't write so the missionary journal has been found to be the best record in many cases. She also has been able to identify members today in photos when they were children. If anyone wants more info, just google her name. She has had at least 2 Ensign articles written on her trips to the USA to get information, photos and missionary journal from the descendants of the old missionaries.

She has over 30,000 photos and her collection will be part of the new Pacific Area Church History Museum in Hamilton.  She is a sweet lady. She used to be part of a 3 girl pop group in the 60's and 70's that were popular in New Zealand and Australia. 

September Road Trip

Because the Hamilton New Zealand Temple is so far for the people of New Zealand to get to, many of the Stakes and Districts (Mission areas) elect to have 2 temple weeks each year.  {Note: the length of the two island is about 1300 miles long, and it would take 28 hours to drive the length, including the ferry ride between the 2 islands} Our Stake had one the last week of September. We got permission to go outside of our Mission (it is the south 1/3 of the north island & all of the south island) to go with our Stake to the Temple. We also took the opportunity to travel to Cody's home, just north of Auckland for the weekend. It is about 400 miles away. That doesn't seem like too much in US freeway miles, but in New Zealand, it is an adventure. The highways all go through each town along the way, and you slow to 50 kph (30 mph) in each one. The highest posted speed is 100 kph (about 64 mph). The highway engineers must have paid the contractors extra for each curve that they could add to a stretch of road, as there are very few straight stretches of highway, except when paralleling some fields.  It took us 9.5 hours to get there. And we get to drive a used Chevy Cruze (not that comfortable). We were SO glad to arrive.

But it really was a beautiful drive (even the white knuckle parts). We crossed a desert area, drove inside an old volcano, next to a beautiful lake (Lake Taupo), and saw so much beautiful farmland.

We stopped to stretch at Taihape. Of course, someone in the car immediately found a quilt shop to browse in. Luckily they were out of gumboots (like rubber boots or muck boots in the US)

We drove around the west side of Lake Taupo, which is a huge abandoned volcanic crater. 

We stopped to eat a quick lunch here in a small rest stop. The clouds make this photo harder to see, but all the low clouds is really steam vents. The lake photo was taken from here too.

We had showers off and on the rest of the way into Auckland, so didn't take more photos until we got to our destination---Cody & JoEllen's!!

This turned out to be the best day to walk on the beach until Monday. It was so nice, and seemed much warmer than Wellington.

This photo looks like the 3 stooges, but it was supposed to be the impersonation of looking manly on Manly beach. Oh well....

Saturday Culture Experience

Last Saturday was quite cold. We were ending the 3rd day of our first storm that began near Antarctica. Being at sea level it didn't get below freezing, but with high winds and rain, it was quite miserable. So we decided to have an indoor experience. There are several museums in Wellington, so we went to the Te Papa Tongarewa National Museum.  But first we had to go to our local farmers market and stock up on fresh food.

After lunch we headed into downtown Wellington to the museum, located next to the harbor. Te Papa Tongrewa is Maori (most places and things often use both names), and literally means 'container of treasures'. 

The museum is 6 floors. We barely managed to see one level. The first exhibit was built to commemorate the 100 year anniversary of New Zealand sending troops to support Great Britain in WWI. They sent about 100,000 men, and New Zealand only had a population of 1.1 million. The battle in the exhibit was the Battle of Gallipoli. It is as famous here as Battle of the Bulge is in the USA.  It was near Turkey, and they suffered terrible loss.

The exhibit was helped by the WETA labs, which is part of the New Zealand movie studios headquartered in Wellington (they did Lord of the Rings, etc.)  The characters are very lifelike and are 2.4 times real size.  Here are a few:

The hairs on his leg even moved in the breeze.

It was very moving to see.




Thursday was one of the most beautiful days we have had since arriving. Blue sky, only a light breeze and about 14 degrees (almost 60 degrees). We took a long lunch and strolled down to the harbor, and had lunch.  Here is a view looking north. The docks are just to the left. Cargo ships awaiting a berth.

There are sail boats in the harbor, and lots of shops along the way. The lunch crowd was huge. Runners, walkers, sitters, people picnicking.

So, we look out into the harbor, and there a half dozen hardy souls doing laps across the harbor. The air temperature is 59 degrees and the water temperature is 53 degrees. One gal was just in a swim suit, no wet suit. I doubt that I could have gotten warm by the end of the day after that. We were impressed.

So, after that beautiful day, today was foggy, rainy, windy at varying times of the day. We have north winds today, and will have south winds tomorrow. Good thing we are from Page, where the weather changes all the time too. What a fun place to be.

Kiwi & Eels

Now that is a great title!! 

Today we traveled to several towns to check on young missionaries and inspect their flats (apartments). We will be doing that once every 2 months. Our adventures took us about 160 km northeast to Carterton, Masterton and Pahiatua (pah-he-ah-too-ah). There are many Pacific Islanders on missions in New Zealand. We have met some from Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga, Philippines, plus Australia, South Africa, Ireland. They are so fun to meet and learn of their customs. Many flats we remove shoes to enter. Some have needed to learn to sleep in beds (and to put on sheets and pillow cases. 

On the way there we stopped at a wildlife refuge that mainly focuses on birds. They have a climate controlled building where they help hatch kiwi eggs, then grow them until they can be released back into the wild. Kiwi's (the birds) are endangered. Their enemies are basically anything with 4 legs, and cars. They are nocturnal, and dark brown. they don't fly, and they burrow under tree roots for their nests. So they are easy prey for almost any predator.

At the sanctuary, they have a habitat for 2 kiwi birds. One of the birds is albino with white feathers. She has mated with a regular kiwi. The habitat uses red light in the daytime and turns on white lights at night, which makes the birds active during the day since they don't really see the red light. They then sleep at night when the white lights (sunlight) is on.  Here is what they look like.

Here is what we got to see.

They were both running around, and digging in the ground cover for worms. Apparently they can hear them moving and nail them with their beaks. We then saw an egg in an incubator, and Lois held a wooden one to show the size of the egg. I also took a photo of an egg in a nest (replica) with a photo of the kiwi behind it. Lastly, the egg is big compared to the size of the Kiwi. The last shot is of a Kiwi skeleton with the egg inside. It is the equivalent of being pregnant with a 6 year old!!!! Oh my, that poor mama. 

One of the other birds is a flightless bird is the Takahe. It is also endangered. They have 2 old ones that live here. Sorry, the iPhone doesn't have a good long range lens on it.

They also have the Tuatara, lizard. It has some dinosaur-like features that more modern lizards don't have. They are about 18" - 24" long. The pair here are about 80 years old.

Female. Pregnant with 13 eggs.

 Male.

Lastly, we saw these eels. They are in a stream but hang around this area because they get fed lunch every day. Some were 3 feet long. We saw a Maori TV show last night where an older woman went fishing for them in a river--bare handed. Ugh!

Next time we go up there, we will have to take some photos of the area. Big farms and ranches. There are both sheep and cattle ranches, oops, I just looked that up and they are "stations" down here. I wonder if they get along better here than in the USA.

The young missionaries are very dedicated here. Many from the islands or other countries don't have driver licenses. So they cannot drive here. They either walk or bike every day. They are very humble and try to love and help all who they come in contact with. Some are in a new, more modern country for the first time, and have to adjust to a faster-paced culture. We try to help them adjust and focus on teaching about the plan of salvation and how they can find peace and happiness for their families.