Going Down Under

Another day with a mix of culture, action and beautiful nature😀 After a good breakfast again at the same place as yesterday, I made my way down to Lake Rotorua to the Maori village Ohinemutu. A little Waitangi Day Festival took place there with music, food and a market. Furthermore, guided tours in the village were offered. I visited the church and the cemetery and learned a little bit of Maori history in the village's meeting house which you are only allowed to enter without shoes. I spent some more time at the festival, which actually was not very different to a German "Dorffest". Then my next adventure was about to start. I got picked up to do ziplining in a forest close to Rotorua. After getting the safety equipment the group and our two very nice guides, Cheyenne and Mitch, headed out to the forest. Again, such a beautiful forest! After a short walk we stopped on a bridge and Cheyenne had some larves with her to treat a robin. The bird was a little shy and, though coming very close to her, did not pick up the larve from her hand. Second try: I took the larve on my hand and, yes, after a while the bird took it😀. Then we arrived to the first zipline. I was a little excited, but then it was so much fun😁 About 90 minutes of action and fun in the gorgeous forest, fand five more ziplines and a hanging bridge were to follow. One zipline was really long, another one really high and at the last one I even zipped upside down for a little while. I wished there would have been more ziplines to come. In between we also walked again through the forest and were provided with really interesting information about the conservation of the forest. They have many traps to kill possums and rats which are not native to New Zealand and are a massive danger to the native birdlife and flora because they eat eggs as well as leaves and other parts of the trees. The conservation program is mainly financed by the ziplining parcours. After I got back to town I treated myself on the Thursday Night Market - a streetfood market - with tasty Chinese dimsum, some lamb sticks as well as a banana caramel cake.Читать далее