The drive from Black Water Rafting to Hamilton was only about 1.5 hours. But we decided to stop at a small Kiwi House that was almost on the way, since one of the goals of the trip was to see a kiwi...
You might be laughing at us while reading this because you can only see Kiwi AT NIGHT! Yeah, did you know that? We did not, but we learned it after "bribing" the Kiwi House attendant. We told him we need 15 minutes with the Kiwi bird, that's it. We just wanted to complete the goal of seeing one--hahaha. So the guy was so kind and he just said, "That way, you have to stare into the darkness behind the glass window and you will eventually see a creature move--that is our kiwi bird, or one of them!". And then followed with a quick, "Donations welcome".
So we quickly walked single file through the door and along the darkened corridor, ignoring all the displays and explanations about what Kiwi birds do and how they live, and straight to the room where you could potentially see one. I kid you not when I say we literally had to stare for a good while into the blurred darkness with natural habitat environment replica till we finally saw some subtle movement...and then...and then...we could actually see a Kiwi!!! It looked exactly like the pictures we had seen, and is a size of a chicken. You had to stare pretty hard to make out the silhouette! And a few minutes later of staring and we could see its friend--the other Kiwi! The room is kept dark on purpose during the day so people can observe them (if they can get their eyes used to the darkness), so it made me wonder what do they do at night? Turn on sunlight lamps? Are these kiwis on an eternal jet lag with their days and nights flipped?
In any case--we accomplished our goal and expressed our gratitude to the Kiwi House front desk guy who made it possible on our tight schedule!
Yeah...no, don't get your hopes up. The actual Kiwis are not this size-hahaha.
"Can I sit on it?"
Mark on a Kiwi bird. A dream completed.
Katya was more excited than all of us to finally see a kiwi bird.
I am not sure where Alex's picture with this kiwi went....
So, back on the road towards Hamilton! Why Hamilton you might ask? Technically, we could have made it all the way to Auckland by the evening and spent an extra night there but we wanted to do something special in Hamilton.
Our LDS Temple is located in Hamilton (with another one being built in Auckland, btw), so we were trying to see if we could all go visit the temple as a family and do some baptisms. I reserved a B&B about a mile away from the temple, and then went online trying to book a session for our family. It looked like a group of youth was going to be at the temple at the same time as us (the earliest we could be there was 7), so I actually emailed the temple and asked if there was a way for us to join that group! And guess what--they let us come! Miracle number one.
This is the surrounding area of where we were going to be staying.
And just to give you an idea--that is the temple in the background...and then there is a pasture. And a ton of homes where members of our church live, all close to the temple and in general in Hamilton. I miss this view--this reminded us of England a lot.
And then we drove up to the house where we were staying...We were like WHOA! I mean, it is a bit extravagant for the area-hahaha...cows and all. But this house even had lamas and bunnies and all sorts of farm animals on its property! There is our Staria parked in the front right.
Ok, but here is a funny small miracle number two. We show up there, take off our shoes as it's requested (it's an important detail which makes sense a little later), we are shown to our room, which was a nice big room upstairs that's meant for four people, but that is made to be for five people with Katya sleeping on a blow up mattress in a large closet basically-haha. It worked. At that time we were welcomed by the grown up son of the owner of the property, Collette, whom I'd been in touch.
We quickly changed into our dress clothes before heading to the temple, and finally Collette came home, went upstairs to meet us (and of course, we are all dressed nicely by then, not black water rafting clothes;), and she starts talking to us, asking questions about the kids, and finally get to the part about BYU. And she is like, "We are members of the church too!" And we were like, "WHAT?!". Anyway! It was super awesome! We had a lot to talk about and discuss as they had such an interesting life! They spent half of their life in Japan (thus taking the shoes off is a must) when their kids were young, and then their teenage kids became super popular singers and TV show participants and stuff like that. We had to run to get a bite to eat and then go to the temple, but we continued our conversation in the evening and the following morning. It was really neat.
And here is a picture of the temple in the evening.
It was such an amazing experience! It was beautiful to see our kids together at the temple.
And we met some lovely people! They told us all sorts of stories and "legends" from life in Hamilton.
Our B&B came with breakfast to honor the second "B" part. And it was delicious! Cooked by a chef, with lots of yummy options.
I took this picture before we left because I was so impressed that such a collection exists!!
Before we left, we got to meet the sweetest lamas!
Collette let us help her feed them in the morning. It was so funny as they seriously understood her words!!!
They galloped for food and were so excited to see new people! It was hilarious!
Collette told us a bunch of stories of how she acquired different animals on her farm.
And here is a picture to remember our stay (it's worth mentioning...looking into the future...when we were traveling in Romania four months later, we met a missionary serving in Romania, from New Zealand who was actually related to Collette's family and he called her Auntie-hahahaha...so many member connections in Hamilton!).
As we were heading to Auckland, we stopped by the temple grounds to get a picture in the daylight.
Our trip was slowly coming to an end but still had a couple of days left in New Zealand! We were on our way to Auckland now, the final place we where we were staying.
To Be Continued...
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