Kia Ora

Good Day Mate

This past weekend has been one the most memorable weekend of my life. To start out we visited a Maori tribe Friday night. When we first arrived, we had to inform then that we come in peace. To do that, our leader Chris had to face a Maori warrior and retrieve a stick from the warrior as a sign of peace. Than they sang us a song, in which we had to respond back with a song. The song that we sang was ‘Aint No Mountain High Enough’. We killed it; well at least they liked it. We not the singing bunch of people. After we made peace with the Maori, they sand us a bunch or songs including their Haka, which they are most known for. After our singing celebration, we celebrated with a traditional Maori dinner. It was FANTASTIC. Best meal I’ve had on this trip so far. They cook all their food in the ground. What they do it: 1st get their rocks nice and hot, 2nd add a little water to create steam, 3rd they put the baskets of meat which are filled with pork, beef and chicken, 4th they add a basket of veggies on a little later, 5th they take everything off when done cooking and separate everything in the kitchen. The whole process takes about six hours to complete. If their stones don’t get hot enough, the meal will be ruined. After dinner, we set up our sleeping arrangements in the Maori meetinghouse were we made peace with the Maori. All 28 of us plus Art and Doug slept in the same room under one roof. It was the biggest slumber party I’ve ever been to.

On Saturday morning Cookie (our awesome bus driver) picked us up and took us to this crazy sheep auction place. We saw and learned about the different types of sheep that roam the lands of NZ. They also brought out a cow, which Evan milked. I think he may have had some practice before because he knew exactly what to do. After sheep farm we went ZORBING which was AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME !!!! We climbed into this huge hamster ball and sailed down this hill. The ball was filled with water so we stayed stationary as the ball rolled. I doubted myself whether or not to do it, but I’m really glad I did it. Incredible experience! After ZORBING, Cookie dropped a few of us off at the Polynesian Spa where we spend some time in the hot mineral pools. It was very relaxing and a good way to end our day.

Sunday morning we were supposed to go to White Island and see NZ only active volcano. Unfortunately, the sea was to rough and the captain of the Ferry decided it was unsafe to travel through the water. So instead we went to Mount Maunganui to see a rocky inter tidal. The rocks were flooded with all types or different organisms and seashells. We found a large piece of Kelp and was seriously the size of me. It had a very rubbery texture to it. We learned about the different organisms that make up the stratification of the rocky inter tidal. There are some organisms that can only survive under water and other that can only survive about the sea line. On the huge rocks that went into the sea, they was these rock walls that where formed from lava thousands of years ago. They slits were made because the lava was so and than cooled extremely fast causing the rocks to break down quickly creating multiple deep slits in the rock. I was sitting pretty close to the edge of the rocks and Adam (our T.A.) can over to me and warned me that if two or three waves form on the same consecutive spot, then by the time it reached the shore the wave would wash all of us out to sea. That scared me a little bit so I moved. Thanks Adam. Afterwards I was all rocked out, so Evan and me went and grabbed lunch and watch the beach volleyball tournament they had going on. It was a nice end to another great day.

Yours truly,

Michael Cappello a.k.a. MJ

Miss you Mom and Dad