Managed to get myself out of bed to get to the Information Site for my bus pick up early. Of course, the bus turns up late and about 15 minutes late. Tch. Good thing it wasn't a chilly London morning otherwise I'd have been really cheesed off. Instead, it's only a little bit breezy and I had a nice chat to another lady that sat next to me.

Get on the bus and it does about 15 hotel pick-ups, and one that was only round the corner from my hostel. Blooming typical, eh? I guess I got a mini tour of the town at least! :D

First stop is Te Puia which is a Maori arts and culture centre. They have geysers and mud pools there, which were pretty amazing. The geysers came out to play, which was cool, and the mud pool was bubbling away. It had started to rain, so the mud pool was doing quite well, blooping away and looking distinctly muddy. Apparently if there isn't much rain, then the mud just builds up and gets all caked together. Our tour guide said that one very dry year, the fire brigade were called to 'water' the mud pool as the centre had had loads of complaints from tourists because they couldn't see the bubbling mud!!

Te Puia (pronounced Tay Poo-ee-ahh) also had a little kiwi enclosure so I saw my first kiwi birds today! They're very funny looking creatures, and much closer to mammals than birds really. Apparently they have very tiny wings (and can't fly), they have hair rather than feathers, and they don't have a tail. When you look at it, it really does look like it's got some things missing. It's kind of front heavy and has this long beak with it's nostrils right at the end. It forages around in the ground for grubs and so on, using it's long beak.
It is very cute, in a fluffy sort of way, and is an endangered species because of all the mammals that were introduced to NZ by people. Top predator for the kiwi bird is the stoat, which was brought into NZ to bring down the rabbit population. No joy as the stoat found it much easier to go after the kiwi bird as it couldn't get away as quickly as a bunny!
Te Puia is also home to a weaving school, and a wood carving school. You could see some of the students at work, carving traditional Maori designs too.

Next stop was the Agrodome, where we were treated to a show of 19 different breeds of sheep, a sheep shearing demonstration, and some sheep mustering! The sheep were pretty cute, bit smelly, but still cute. The poor sheep that got sheared was kicking away, it obviously didn't want to get rid of it's nice woolly coat!

Third stop was Rainbow Farm where they farm all sorts of trout. They also had a little kiwi enclosure, and they also have a separate kiwi hatching and rearing facility! Apparently kiwi birds can fight the stoats back when they're 6 months and older, so they collect kiwi eggs, rear them until they're 6 months old and then release them back into the wild. This has helped the kiwi population immensly as the survival rate of the birds are only about 5% without the sanctuary. With, their survival rate is about 70% - yay!

Last stop for me was the Skyline gondola ride, which was very nice. Lovely views of Lake Rotorua from the top, and of Mokoia Island. Had a nice walk around at the top, and a good laugh at the people in the Skyswing thingy which is basically just a big swing suspended from some rig or the other. It cranks the swing up to whatever height, and then lets it go!! You can hear the people scream from a little way around!!

I decide to go back to Te Puia, as I quite liked it there and wanted to see the kiwi birds again. They're just so funny, and I doubted that I would get to see them again as I wasn't planning on visiting these kinds of places again. Also, being on a tour means that you don't get to wander around things at your leisure. Most of you know how snap-happy I am with a camera as well, and I wanted to be able to take photos of this and that (nor forgetting the souvenier shopping - and I always spell that word differently. I'll learn how to spell it properly soon) and you just can't do that when you're getting bustled along with the rest of your group!
I really liked the geysers too, so I wanted to see them again. They were still gushing away when I got back, which was pretty cool. Apparently they don't always play for people, so to see them twice in one day is obviously good luck!

The one other thing I've learnt about NZ is that they aren't really big on public transport. It's good with coaches and so on, but local buses really seem to be few and far between. We complain at home because buses don't run that regularly, but imagine if they stopped at 5:30pm!! There'd be outrage! But here, that seems to be completely normal!! I don't think it'd be much better if I knew how to drive though - imagine how much money I'd be wasting hiring cars and paying for fuel. Let alone how many hours I'd be wasting on the side of the road trying to decipher a map in another country!
However, having to rely on tour buses or one's own feet can be a little tiring sometimes. It's a good thing that NZ is quite small and most of the places I've been staying and most of the sites I've wanted to see so far, have been in town, or only a short ride away.

Off to Whakatane tomorrow afternoon to hopefully go and swim with dolphins, see some whales, and see some seals. It's not guaranteed that you'll see any of these creatures, let alone swim with them as it's all weather dependent, but I am crossing my fingers! (Which makes it hard to type so I've stopped now).

In the morning, I think I'll go to the Government Gardens and the Museum if I've got time. I've also got to call home as apparently the bank is trying to get hold of me over a late credit card payment, and my Mum is worried that I've perished in a bush fire in Victoria in Australia even though I've been emailing and texting my sister and they know I'm in New Zealand. She's my mum and I love her and I know she worries, but even this is over the top! The bush fires were in Victoria, yes, where my friends April and Simon live, but they do live several dozen kilometres away from the bush fires. I'm not even there, and I haven't been for almost 2 weeks!

Sigh. CA phone home....