March 12th Trip to Wairarapa

Today we took our first "study abroad group" trip up to Wairarapa, which is about an hour and a half southeast of Wellington. We took a train to our destination which was rather scenic because the tracks ran right along the coast line. In Wairarapa we went to a winery to do some wine tasting. We then went to the Wildlife center for lunch and then took a tour of the park. After the park we ended our visit at the Sheer Discoverey Centre where we watched how sheep were sheered in New Zealand as well as got to try sheering a sheep ourselves. We ended the night by going to another Hurricanes rugby game. They won 26-21. We also got to sit right behind the rugby players so we were hoping they would turn around so we could blow them a kiss ;)

Apparently you can reach the Hogwarts Express from New Zealand as well!

Inside the Railway Station.

Scenery from inside the rain. It was cloudy and rainy in the morning so the visibility wasn't great

Through Masterton which is a subdivision of Wairarapa. I took the picture because this agricultural town reminded me of a small town in Nebraska

The entrance to the winery.

The winery was very small. This was the main building at the winery which  I'm sure is family owned.

The five wines we tasted. Two of them have won major awards. John, our guide, told us that the Chardonnay would have a toasty taste to it. It smelt exactly like burnt toast! It tasted kind of like toast as well so I did not enjoy that wine (tasting liquid toast was not my cup of tea :) )

They put nets on the vines so that birds do not eat the grapes. They said that they also have recordings of gun shots go off so it scares the birds.

Inside the Wildlife Park. (it was mainly a bird park)

We watched a lady feed the eels in the lake. There were many eels swimming around below us on the bridge. Fresh water Eels can grow up to be 3 meters long (almost 6 feet!)

This is the Kiwi bird! It has no wings and therefore is a flightless bird. It is a nocturnal animal so you rarely see them out in the wild. Their beaks have many nerves so the beak is handled with care. If their beak was damaged it could mean fatality out in the wild. When a female is pregnant the egg usually takes up 1/5 of her body.

This bird apparently did not want to be out in the light because it fought the guy the whole time he was showing it to us

This fern is famous in New Zealand for curing its leaves. There are many Maori (indigenous) paintings and jade carvings of the fern.

These are Kaka birds that inhabit most of the park.

This place was called Home of the Golden Sheers because this is where they host the worlds fastest shearer.

This guy showed us how to man handle the sheep to shear them.

We sat behind the rugby teams so we got to see them up close. They are super big!!

This is my new Mike's Hard-Lemonade!

We finally finished all the sea creatures and put them up on the walls in my flat.

These are the fish that we placed on Julien's door.

When my roommates came back home from downtown and thought that they walked into the wrong flat. My other roommate came in and woke me up at 9am with her laughing because she thought the decorations were really cool.

 Julien tore down the some of the fish but he said he kept up the original and creative ones. He spared my sea turtle yay!