April 13: Kiwi Cars and Mount Mordor.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Te Puke, NZ
- We had been seeing all the super cute kiwi bird traffic signs, like The Faster You go, the Bigger the Mess. With a cartoon kiwi.
-Kiwi 360 Tour. We waited and waited and finally our guide, Simon, came out chugging coffee and said we could pick any car. Private tour on the Kiwi Cars! The pack house, one of the coolest parts of the tour. We went up and watched all the rows of workers, having kiwis dropped to them from a constantly moving conveyor belt. The belt had a computer that weight each individual kiwi, and knew which line to drop it down based on its size. It was pretty insane, and all of the workers packing the boxes of them and sending them down. There were HUGE Kiwis, and we learned that the reason we never see them is because Asia is willing to pay for the bigger ones and they get them first. The pack house was really fascinating to see.
-We also learned that in New Zealand, in order to collect unemployment, you must work during fruit season. You cant claim there is no work during packing season, because there always is, so much that they bring people in for it.
-There are three kinds of kiwis, baby kiwis are more unique, while Golden kiws are newer, but common here. Those are sweeter in taste with smoother skin, and of course the green kiwi.
-Matamata, the homeplace of all the LOTR phenomena is overrated. The tours end up being $65 a piece, 2.5 hours long, and all you saw was the scenic background of the movie. There are no hobbit holes or anything left. So we decided that was a total bust and just took a picture at the Hobbiton sign.
- We circled town a few times for various reasons, the last few being that we thought we should hit Subway in order to not have another day of no eating til night time. Same bread choices, the white cheese is cheddar or swiss, and we have no idea what the yellow cheese is. If you want it left untoasted, then you want your sandwich “fresh.” And the bread was so delicious, even the Subway bread is awesome!
-Honey Hive. They had two indoor hives, a kids section, beauty section, sample section, cooking section, ice cream setup, fudge setup, tables, information and books. It was large. We looked at the bees, and moved on to the samples. We sampled three different honey wines, “mead.” And I liked them so much, we actually ended up buying two bottles. Tim also tried the honey whiskey. We learned that its called a honey moon because the entire month after a wedding, the men would drink only mead in order to produce male offspring.
-Taupo. We didn’t have time to go to the actual Thermal Park, but the National sites were still open. Most were a bust, but Huka Falls was a rushing river that came out into a mini waterfall, and that was actually really pretty. The water was ultra blue, just like it all seems to be here.
-Traveled around and down Lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand.
-Whakapapa village road, leads to Mordor Mount. We kept driving and driving, it was no dark, and we were totally in the middle of nowhere. There were kiwi signs though! So we kept looking for them. Still headed down this dark long straight road, nothing, no lights in sight, and then BAM! We see this huge chalet all lit up. It was so weird and jarring.
-The higher we climbed, the foggier it got. Slowly, and it was really really eery. But very cool. We were enveloped in the mist, wth only darkness next to us. And fthe temperature had dropped dramatically, therewas even snow on the ground. Finally it got so thick with fog that Tim couldn’t really even see where he was going, so we turned around and went back down, the but slow eery drive through the mountain fog was fun enough for me.
-Stayed in Palmerston North at a glorious Bella Vista.