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Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Day 20 - Bay of Islands

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

I thought I could never see such beautiful scenery and landscapes as I did today! The parents and I got to take a tour bus four hours North to the Bay of Islands, which is the Northern most part of New Zealand and here we got to see the Pacific Ocean and the Tasmanian Sea come together as well as for some of you movie geeks, some of the places where they filmed Lord of the Rings.

The tour's first stop was actually at the Waitangi Treaty Grounds where we learned a lot of history about how New Zealand and the British came together to build this great land. Here we also got to see the largest war canoe, which was carved out of two enormous trees. Our guide for this part of our tour, Wil, actually was born and raised on the Treaty Grounds, so he was extremely knowledgeable out the place, plus we got some inside information on what it was like growing up in the area.


Next stop was our 2 1/2 hour cruise across all the islands that lay out in this part of the ocean. I could explain the amazing colors and layout of these islands. I took over 400 pictures of these islands because I didn't want to miss out on anything the land was showing. The highlight of the tour was to cruise to "The Hole in the Rock", a formation of land that has been carved out by years of water erosion. We were lucky that we had great weather so we were able to cruise under it and extremely lucky that our Captain was a great cruiser as he only had about 3 feet on each of the ferry to get us through.

3 comments:

Roberta said...

I got my Autalia Postcard today! Thanks! You really are having a good time. Everyone I know who's been there can't wait to go back. Special place. Have lots and lots more fun!
Love ya-R

Roberta said...

I really can spell!---Please ignore any and all typos in above comment!Ü

orangemily said...

Wow, that sounds so neat! I can't wait to see pictures!