9/18 - Transfer to Rotorura

 We left the hotel at 8:30 to drive to Rotorua, where we will spend the next 3 nights. As usual, there were a couple of interesting stops on the way so we didn't have to sit all day. The first stop was Hamilton Gardens: a very interesting place with dozens of variations of gardens done over the last 4,000 years and across various cultures and concepts. We viewed a lot of them but it was clear there was not time to see them all. 

This was the entrance to the gardens

This is a series from the Mediterranean Garden

 

 

Next we went to the Maori Garden, which featured many structures and statues. Much of it looked wild to represent the 'natural landscape' representative of the time.

The entrance to the actual gardened part

Detail of the small hutch behind the entry fence

Where the regalia of the leaders was kept inside a
kumera (sweet potato) field. They were sensitive to
wet soil and needed more warmth so they were planted
in mounds with the roots pointed to Polynesia. This
kept them both drier and warmer. New Zealand is
colder than the other islands they colonized.

This structure was built to look
like a boat hull.

We walked through an English garden that featured Alice in Wonderland, and then came to an interesting sundial on the ground that could identify months and dates instead of time. I wish I had taken an overview picture of it.

The Surrealist Garden was the weirdest, with oddly shaped trees that had mechanical moving limbs.

My favorite in some ways was the Egyptian Garden, and my reaction to it made me realize that at some level, our trip to Egypt was my favorite. When asked about which of our trips was my favorite, my typical answer is "the one I'm on" but today I realized how much I loved seeing the historic sites in a country whose history I have probably read more about - both fiction and non-fiction - than any other.

 Then we walked through a random sampling of other gardens on the way to finish with the Japanese and Indian Gardens.

This is an English Knot Garden, named for how the
hedges are shaped.

The Japanese garden started with this raked
contemplative area where the raking can represent
wind or water.

This rock is a turtle with the world on its back. The
Japanese garden focused on quiet contemplation
throughout.

This haiku was written as a
reaction to this space.

 

In contrast, the Indian garden is a riot of color designed
to represent a Persian rug. When the growth is complete,
the concept is the plants will all be the same height.

 

Back on the bus, we continued south and made a bathroom stop in Tirau with a dog-shaped tourist building. One section was a sort of a gift shop and I fell in love with a long sweater that was 65% merino lambs wool, 25% possum fur, and 10 % silk. The other find was a heavy fleece jacket with a rounded collar. I figured since I am moving to a colder climate, I could justify both. Possums were brought  here from Australia and now there are more of them in New Zealand than in Australia. Like any non-native animal (especially in a place with no large predatory species), they are a blight on the land and there is a bounty on them. The meat is used for pet food and clothing is made from the fur.

As we approached Rotorura, we stopped at a kiwi breeding facility. Before people came to New Zealand, there were only birds here: no four-legged animals at all. Once mammals were introduced, it had a devastating effect on the bird population, especially the flightless birds. The breeding facility both finds and relocates eggs and has breeding pairs that lay them in the hatchery. Kiwis don't ever imprint on humans so they can be hand raised and released to the wild when they weigh about 2 lbs. We were not allowed to take photos except in an exhibition space with only stuffed birds. 

First we went into a habitat with a couple male birds. They are nocturnal and scare easily, so the lights were all red and we spoke softly if at all. I saw 3 nesting boxes, but no kiwis. Then we moved to the hatchery where there was a newborn kiwi and another starting to try to get out of his egg. The eggs are HUGE: many times the size of a chicken egg. It is hard to see how a chicken sized animal could create it. It would be like a human birthing a 35 lb baby. While we were there, they removed one egg from its box and started to work at gently breaking the egg on one end to facilitate getting the chick out: sort of like a partial cesarean section on the shell.

Next, we moved to the nursery and the bigger brood boxes. Even though the birds are quite territorial, when they are this young, up to 4 birds will share a box. One kiwi last year started getting skinnier instead of gaining weight and they thought he was being bullied, so they moved him to a different box with no change. They finally figured out that he was getting stressed out about the leaves in the box so they were removed. Someplace along the line, as he grew, he became an enormous fan of leaves and started collecting and hoarding them. The center has a sibling egg of his in production and the staff is hoping the brother or sister will be easier to deal with.

This is an accurate representation of the huge egg that
is created by a relatively small bird.

 Usually it is safe to walk in the areas where our hotels are. This time, the pandemic has had lasting and sad effect on the city's population. During the pandemic, the country was completely closed to non-citizens and those here were returned to their home countries. It was also difficult for New Zealanders who were out of the country to get back home. So suddenly, there was next to zero hotel business. There were also concerns about how to  support the homeless population and the presence of a lot of empty motels (here that distinction means to has a kitchen) gave the government the idea to transfer a LOT of the homeless to the empty hotels, focusing on Rotorua because of the number of tourist motels here. Seventeen of them (many near our hotel) are still hosting the homeless, creating a safety problem. Drugs and property destruction are just two of the issues.

Our new hotel is quite old and some of the rooms are apparently more spacious than others. Another clue to the age is the total lack of climate controls in the room outside of remotes to drive the wall-mounted A/C units. We called down to see how to make the room warmer and they immediately offered up space heaters. We opted for extra blankets instead.