Alright so I'm home now so I'm a bit behind on this whole blogging thang. So the rest of the roadtrip is when Daisy joined in, we hit up the Tui Brewery, New Plymouth, and a seaside drive up the west coast of New Zealand's north island.
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| Tui car at the brewery! |
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| The Tui billboards are pretty hilarious, we got to make our own. |
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| The group! My flattie Jodie and our friend Daisy. |
This is a wind farm that we drove through to get to New Plymouth. Such amazing weather that weekend, and could the hills possibly be prettier? The wind power provides a very small percent of the electricity in New Zealand, they actually get 54% of their electricity from hydro-power from dams, and 73% total from renewables. That's pretty good, most countries have less than 20%, the U.S. is at 11%. New Zealand's goal is to be at 90% by 2050, and may actually reach it, but few other countries can even dream of that.
This is the beach at New Plymouth, such a gorgeous place! You can kinda see the town in the background and on the horizon on the right there are bumps of volcanic rock in the sea.
This is a marae in. . .a very small town on the way home, I think it was Te Kuiti? It has one big street and a few tiny ones off of it, and it's home to this marae. A marae is an important building to Moari people. They use these buildings for funerals and I think also community meetings. They're decorated in intricate carvings, and have photos on the inside of the people whose funerals have been there. They're sacred buildings, and you're supposed to take your shoes off to go inside. The Maori caretaker let me and Jodie in and was very casual about it all, but I think we're not supposed to be allowed to see the inside.
My flatties and I went to a rugby game at the stadium at the opposite end of Rimu Street from our flat. It was between Waikato and Taranaki; Waikato is the region that Hamilton is and Taranaki is the region that New Plymouth is in. Rugby is a great game, much better than american football, and the country is getting all geared up to host the rugby world cup this fall. Sadly I won't be able to go back to New Zealand to cheer them on.
This is my favorite place in Hamilton other than our flat on Rimu Street. I've never actually been to Fush and Chups, but one of my bus routes passed by it, and it made me very happy. When you ask an Australian what a Kiwi accent sounds like, one thing they'll say is that Kiwis say "Fush and Chups" instead of fish and chips. Most of them don't actually speak that way, except Maoris who have reallyyy strong accents. I never got the opportunity to ask a Maori person to say fish and chips for me though.
This is a wind farm that we drove through to get to New Plymouth. Such amazing weather that weekend, and could the hills possibly be prettier? The wind power provides a very small percent of the electricity in New Zealand, they actually get 54% of their electricity from hydro-power from dams, and 73% total from renewables. That's pretty good, most countries have less than 20%, the U.S. is at 11%. New Zealand's goal is to be at 90% by 2050, and may actually reach it, but few other countries can even dream of that.
This is the beach at New Plymouth, such a gorgeous place! You can kinda see the town in the background and on the horizon on the right there are bumps of volcanic rock in the sea.
This is a marae in. . .a very small town on the way home, I think it was Te Kuiti? It has one big street and a few tiny ones off of it, and it's home to this marae. A marae is an important building to Moari people. They use these buildings for funerals and I think also community meetings. They're decorated in intricate carvings, and have photos on the inside of the people whose funerals have been there. They're sacred buildings, and you're supposed to take your shoes off to go inside. The Maori caretaker let me and Jodie in and was very casual about it all, but I think we're not supposed to be allowed to see the inside.
This is my favorite place in Hamilton other than our flat on Rimu Street. I've never actually been to Fush and Chups, but one of my bus routes passed by it, and it made me very happy. When you ask an Australian what a Kiwi accent sounds like, one thing they'll say is that Kiwis say "Fush and Chups" instead of fish and chips. Most of them don't actually speak that way, except Maoris who have reallyyy strong accents. I never got the opportunity to ask a Maori person to say fish and chips for me though.
Good, very nice. Did you ever actually try the Fush and Chups?
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