New Zealand
April 1, 2005
By, Daniel Kennedy

Chapter 1
Getting There

Getting here was AWFUL! I sit here writing what happened in New Zealand so far, on the 10th day. In all, we waited 22 hours to get here, sitting in the two airports and airplanes. But we DID watch two movies. And we did get to listen to music. And we DID get here. And it is really cool to be here in New Zealand. I guess it’s worth it (even if I only got 5 hours of sleep). None of my luggage got lost either. To get here, we had to go to Los Angeles first. All the big important looking people asked who was looking after us, thinking my 15 year old aunt Rose wasn’t old enough, and we had to tell them all how my mom and her fiance were waiting there for us. It was SO annoying!

Chapter 2
Muriwai

The second day we got here, we went to Muriwai beach. The water was warm, and the tide was out so we could see a cave in the big stone cliff. It was cool! We also saw these seagull-like birds called gannets. They have yellow heads, and cement their nests with poop! We want to go there again!

Chapter 3
Piha

The day after that, we went to Piha, where the sand is black and purply. It is A LOT bigger than Muriwai. It has lots of sea creatures and more caves too. There’s even a huge rock called Lion’s Rock we climbed, but it wasn’t the same (or better). THE WATER WAS COLD!! Not that cold, but water is EVERYTHING! For a beach! Oh well.

Chapter 4
The Zoo

On Friday, Patrick tooks us to the zoo! My favourite animals are the Cottontop and Golden Lion Tamarins. They were adorable! They were like really small monkeys. Originally I wanted to write an essay on them.

Chapter 5
Going To Goat Island

The day aftercame our six hour trip to a nice beach/park called Leigh. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take its many beautiful shells with us. L For lunch, we had a picnic. On the way back, we had fish & chips, and spent the night in a youth hostel.

Chapter 6
Cape Reinga

After that we went to Cape Reinga, the northern most tip on the island, where I was 11434 kms away from home. L The Maori people say this is where your spirit departs from the world. It was a spectacular sight!

Chapter 7
90 Mile Beach

On the trip back, we went to Ninety Mile Beach, really only ninety kilometres long. You can actually drive on it at 100 km/hr. The only exciting thing there is that the waves were so strong they knocked Brennen over.

Chapter 8
My Birthday!

It was MY BIRTHDAY at home today! There was cake and pizza and we went to a Mexican resaurant for dinner. We also did all the Easter stuff! After dinner we went up the Sky Tower 350 (or something like that) meters off the ground. We also saw some building art.

Chapter 9
Waitomo Caves

On Tuesday we went to see the Waitomo Glow Worm Caves, made of limestone. The glowworms have long sticky strings of web to catch their prey. The next day we got canvas, and I painted a dragon.

Chapter 10
Rotorua

Today we had a picnic lunch and went on THE ZORB, a big rubber ball where you ride inside while the ball rolls. That was on the way to Rotorua, where there were boiling mudpools, geysers, and info on the Maori people. New Zealand is amazing!

**New Zealand Facts**

· New Zealand is 20 hours ahead of home
· NZ is south of the equator, almost on the other side of the world
· The weather is very warm and sunny most of the time
· No heating (I don’t think they need it!) but we do have a fan heater we used once
· When it does rain, it’s very hard and sudden
· The kiwi bird is the national bird in NZ
· People of NZ call themselves kiwis
· The kiwi is a flightless nocturnal bird related to the ostrich and emu
· Good ketchup and chips are hard to find
· Kids have school uniforms

prev | index | next