I am currently in Tauranga for 4 days while Darren's parents are on holiday we are housesitting for a few days. Yesterday we went to the beach for the kids to body surf. Beautiful huge waves. It was lovely. Due to the wreck of the Rena there is still oil floating toward shore. We got soaked by the waves and we had small specks of oil on us as well, little specks on our feet and the backs of our legs. Imagine what it does to the sea life. We struggled to wipe it from our skin. The worst wreck in NZ's history. Lots of seabirds died from the oil spill and are dying from the massive amounts of food mostly milk powder and styrafoam bubbles spilling onto the shore. The amount of volunteers pitching in to clean up was amazing and information about the extensive clean up is now at museums around the country. Why the news does. ot report hardly any of this is beyond me and somehow the ship itself is respnsible for very little of the $ burden. Craziness.
Jade and Caleb did see a healthy little blue penguin while the grown ups went for a walk up a cliff on Mount Mauganui called the blowhole. We watched the surfers surf. We have climbed up 3 mountains in 3 day one was Te Aroha mountain and the other was called Wairongimai Valley. We also visited the Karangahake George, walked over 2 swinging bridges (scary) and through tunnels and tunnels used for rail cars to move gold. We also found some silver ferns, the symbol of the All Blacks, the 2011 world rugby champions and native baby fern fronds called koru which symbolise new growth in Maori culture.
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