Tauranga ASB Breast Cancer Women Only Walk - 21 October 2009

On 21 October Holly and I took part of a Women Only Walk in support of the fight against breast cancer. Thousands of women dressed in pink walked through Tauranga and it was a really uplifting the see so many people there. Pretty much all of us know someone who has been stricken by this awful disease and it is easy to loose hope. However I do feel that it is a battle that can be won if we put all that we have into it.

Holly, Karen, Lilli, Fiona and me...



Holly made a really cool bra with bees...


Words are not necessary here...


Holly and Ric bustin' some moves....


A sea of pink....

Rotorua - the sights, smells and sounds...

New Zealand is known for many things and one of them is geothermal springs and one of the best places to experience them is in Rotorua. I went there a couple of weeks ago and the first thing I noticed getting out of my car is the allways present smell of sulphur aka rotten eggs. Instead of being annoyed by it it sort of reminded me of Esbjerg. Well, now that has come to and end for Esbjerg hasn't it? I visited the Rotorua Museum which is the old bath house from the 1800 hundreds. Europeans discovered the healing powers of the thermal pools and this resulted in bath houses all over the place. Not as grand as this one but many people came to heal different alements.

The Rotorua Museum - the old bath house

The area was also famous for it's pink and white terraces (Otukapuarangi meaning the fountain of the clouded sky and Te Tarata meaning the tattooed rock in Maori.). They were considered to be the 8th wonder of the world and were formed large amounts of siliceous sinter spouting from the geysers leaving silica deposits. The were sadly destroyed in the 1886 eruption of Mount Tarawera which could be heard as far away as Blenheim and the effects of the ash in the air were observed as far south as Christchurch, over 800 km south. In Auckland the sound of the eruption and the flashing sky was thought by some to be an attack by Russian warships.

It must have been beautiful...



Painting of the terraces...

After reading a bit about the history I went out into the Goverment Gardens. A very pruned park with a few hot pools. The smell of eggs was especially strong there. Yum...! Maori cook food in the ground where there is thermal activity. Sometimes in the hot pools. It is called hangi and taste fantastic!

Cool to think this is a vent from the core of the Earth...

I visited Ohinemutu. A small Maori village by Lake Rotorua. I am absolutely blown away by the wood carvings Maori do. The small church was filled with wood carved ornaments and the marae (meeting house) is one of the most amazing houses I have ever seen. I had a really nice talk with a young woman about the history of the place and also a bit about Danish history. We also talked about different kinds of tourist and she told me that a lot of German people visit the village. While we were talking 5 people came into the village and well what ya know? German tourists!! Are there any left in Germany I wonder....?

A little interesting thing about the church is that all the graves are on top of the ground. It is not possible to bury people in the ground because of the thermal activity.

The church



The marae in Ohinemutu

The faces on the marae scare evil spirits away.

The last thing I saw was the mud pools. They look really tempting to hop into but after a few minutes you'll be boiled and ready for eating so I resisted. I really wish I could put a smelly picture in here. It's a "treat" for your nose I tell ya...!

Mud frogs lept all over the pool...

Don't you just love the sound...?

The TECT All Terrain Park Discovery Day!

One of the major things I have been involved in was the TECT All Terrain Park Discovery Day. It was a day designed for the user groups (and contractors) to come up to the park and display and tell about what they propose to do in the park. It also was a Western Bay of Plenty District Council & Sport Bay of Plenty Live To Play co-event designed to encourage families to get outside and be active.

The biggest job was to contact all the user groups and this was somewhat difficult. I might have said it before but Ric said: "It's like herding cats!" Which is SO true! Just trying to get a hold of them is quite challenging but I did and we had 9 groups upthere on the day. They brought cars, dogs, horses, SAR-equipment (SAR = Search And Rescue) and motorcycles. 15 contractors showed off some of their pretty awesome machinery. Among others a machine that can turn a large tree into chips within 90 seconds! Fuuun....!

Two very mellow sleddogs...

Native plants going in the ground...

One word: Wow...!

The scouts built a ropebridge...



The kids loved the horses!!



I admire guys daring to do this...

1 minute it's a tree, the next a bunch of chips...!



A cool little portable mill. 2 chainsaws and one blade...

We had 4 choppers there! How cool is that?! 4!!! The TECT Rescue, the M*A*S*H, and two other showing how to use a monsoon bucket and one giving an air show. I really wanted to go on the M*A*S*H chopper but time flew by so fast and all of the sudden it was 3 pm and time to go home. Well, after cleaning up that is...

The TECT Rescue Helicopter



Filling the monsoon bucket...



And now putting out the fire with the monsoon bucket...



Man! This guy can really fly!

I also arranged a scavenger hunt for the kids. They had to find different things around the hub site and they did an awesome job! We have a problem with a plant called crocosmia and they had to pick 5 plants out the ground and also collect pine cones. Other plants they needed to draw a picture of because the plants were native. We want those to stay in the ground...! I had also posted 8 signs with English, Maori and Danish words on them. For example: Horse - Hoiho - Hest. They all got a prize for their effort and it was fun doing something for the kids.

A lolly scramble from the chopper...

We had hoped to see 300 people up there.We would have been happy with that number. Conservatively we guesstimate that 600 turned up to see what it's was all about....!! It was an amazing day!

Now we face the summer and things are starting to happen at the Park. Trails are going to be built and hopefully by the end of summer we are going to have an official opening of parts of the Park. Should be very exciting...!

I got a little ride on Fox. He was amazing!