ODD BITS

...Tamaki Maori Village near Rotorua...saw Maori traditional village and all singing and dancing show...it was fun got to learn their history and culture...Haka was performed brilliantly...V and I have been doing our version of Haka on P whenever V have been told to finish her dinner and I have been refused another cold one!...
...trying for hole in one...can't imagine a more beautiful place to hit a golf ball-across Taupu Lake and snow capped mountain in far distant are no other than MOUNT DOOM in Lord Of The Ring...tried 20 balls(dollar a piece) but am rusty as not played since West Indies! ah! Barbados and Cricket World Cup! Baileys(one chap drank 8 bottles!),Sean Paul,Shaggy and Ruby and a crate of cold Banks beers- and a fantastic bunch of lads for company ...what a perfect combinations! I think of our WI trip quite often when I am having a cold one! just magic it was!

...pancake rocks at Punakaiki,West coast...
...pancake rocks......weird cloud formation as sun rises over South Isaland...near Murchison ...the drive between Fox Glacier and Murchinson is the most amazing drive ever...its about 400km of weird rough coast with so many hairpin bends and many through clouds and real scary at times---in NZ the roads do not have any safety barriers on the roadside and that makes it worse when we are use to safety barriers,so one wrong turn and you are a gonner either in the sea or down the mountain---they even have run-away speed ramps in the mountain side incase your brakes fails,so you slam over the ramp rather than go over in to the sea or the mountain,really weird! Also you have to deal with a really wild river called Buller and its deep gorges-I have never been so scared of driving in my life- around and over this Buller gorge -and it was some 100km long or so, and by roadside at one place there is a wide fault with a marker which was the epicenter of the 1963 earthquake here and your mind start thinking lets get the f... out of here...but its not wise to drive here more than 30km/hour...or the Buller gorge waits for you! ...after spending 12 days on South Island we depart by ferry-3 hours crossing to North Island- snow capped Mount Cook can be seen-highest in Southern Hemisphere-its one awesome scenic crossing between the two islands... North is much more populated than South,95% of Maoris live on North,North has Wellington and Auckland and South has Queenstown and Christchurch. South is more mountainous,wilder,icy,wetter than North.On NI-the Tasman side of the island recieves 12 meters of rain a year while South Pacific side recieves only 2 meters! NZ has the most weird weather in the world and its a national pastime talking about weather-apart from All Blacks ofcourse-talking about Rugby-we were in Australia when the Aussi lost in the World Cup and we were in NZ when All Blacks lost and it was like a major national disaster here but then Rugby is the religion in both these countries -did you know NZ is the hotbed of Liberal politics and its here where liberal ideas are tried out before they are spread around the globe eg NZ was the first nation in the world to give women a vote in 1893,it was also first to introduced old-age pensions in 1898 and welfare system in 1928.NZ may seem a far-away peaceful country but has spent much of its history at war,in 19th century it fought at home and in 20th century overseas on behalf of the Brits and Uncle Sam!-Sir Edmund Hillary is the most famous Kiwi for Everest Conquest-Kiwi inventions includes-disposable syringe,child proof top for medicines bottles and tear-back Velcro strip and all the adrenaline charged outdoor activities including bungy , tandem-skydive,jet-boating,caving!-Kiwis do lots of reading,more books are sold in NZ per head than anywhere else in the world-Kiwi's are known for "yes it can be done"-US bully Australia-OZ then bully Kiwi's -Kiwi's then bully Fiji and so on and on...24th richest nation in the world(with Spain)-there are 500 golf courses in NZ for only 4 millions,so they have more golf cousres per head then .......the first referee ever to use a whistle was a Kiwi-All Blacks are the GODS here-Maori culture is all about mythology and using natural resources wisely -Maori form 15% of the population-NZ has on of the most varied and spectacular series of landscapes in the world,ranging from snow-dusted mountains and glacial valleys to rainforests ,dunelands and awesome volcanic plteau .Stupid little-half blind ugly flightless bird is the national bird and now they are trying to save it from being extinct...why?..let the f.....go extinct!

...but the most important KIWI that ever lived was Morton Coutts who revolutionised BEER BREWING in 1950 with the invention of "continous fermentation process",which cut the BEER fermentation process from 15 weeks to less than a day...can you imagine having to wait 15 days for a TOOHEY! well done mate and CHEERS!

...we also went to see Waotamo GLOWWORMS CAVES near Auckland but you can't take pictures as it affects glowworms-one cave had thousands upon thousands of glowworms in the roof of the cave and it looked like watching bright shining stars in the sky at night...caves are really huge and deep underground and there are many rivers and waterfalls too-to see the gloworms we had to go deep underground to a river and then get in to a boat and as boat starts gliding on the water and you look up and there you see them.. in total darkness-one awesome place!

glowworms are little larvae of an insect which burrows in to the roof of the totally dark moist damp caves and then they dangle a little sticky string like obeject with a glow at the bottom and insects are attracted by the glow and are then caught as food-clever little buggers you may think! but not so! cause the little w......s dangle there for up to nine months then they mature as flies but they have no mouth so can't eat and so they all die after2 to 3 days after f.....g each other and laying thousands of eggs but most of the mature flies and eggs are eaten by their cousins larvaes...this behaviour reminds me of a bastard of a nation I know west of Gujarat!