Agrodome
Gnome
April
Fool's Day started off without any problems at all. We were all
still in holiday mode, so Bryan, Joan and I went to the Agrodome
Farm Show. Sounds boring hey. Not!
The
Agrodome was one of the best tourist attractions I'd ever seen.
Our first stop was at the Live Sheep Show. Nineteen breeds of sheep
were introduced on stage, each represented by a magnificent ram.
But the demonstrator's showmanship was brilliant. He played mind
games with the sheep. He even sheared a sheep on stage in just over
a minute.
Then he held an auction for the shorn sheep, and in a professional
auctioneers voice sold it for NZ$52 to … a 7 year old Thai girl!
Then when she came on stage to collect her sheep, without the money,
he traded it to her for the little girl's purse and one of her shoes.
Luckily the girl handled herself magnificently and was rewarded
with a little toy sheep. She got her purse back but left the stage
without her shoe! She did get it back though, and the show continued.
He
demonstrated how good a sheep dog was by herding a couple of ducks!
He then got 3 other sheep dogs to run along the sheeps' backs while
the sheep ignored them completely.
Finally,
he brought a cow onto stage for milking, and Joan was lucky to be
one of the 4 people selected to milk it. She managed to get the
first squirt out, but then the milk stopped coming. Obviously Joan
was not made for milking.
We
also visited:
1)
the Agrodome Woolen Mill - where we saw raw sheep's wool transformed
by a 1906 carding machine (about the size of a train carriage) into
a continuous, finely combed length of wool.
2)
the Fudge and Chocolate Factory - where we saw pure chocolate being
mixed and placed into ornate moulds, then being placed into a fridge
to set before being taken out again and flicked out of their moulds
for packaging.
Rotorua
Geysers
Bryan and
Joan watch Pohutu Geyser, the largest geyser in New Zealand, blow
its top.
But
seeing the geysers in Rotorua were always going to be the highlight.
So off we went to Te Whakarewarewa Thermal Valley, the home of the
world famous Pohutu Geyser. After walking past some small, but interesting
hot mud pools and steaming underground vents, we were most impressed
by New Zealand's most famous geyser. We were entertained by hot
water gushes up to 10 metres high, though it's been known to go
as high as 30 metres. And the show was so exciting that we didn't
mind the sulfur smell at all. It just came with the territory.
The
Maori Meeting House had just started its Maori show when we got
there. So after removing our shoes, we entered the crowded room
and witnessed a traditional display of Maori dance and music, featuring
'Pokarekareana' and many aggressively protruding tongues.
Rotorua
LETS
Bryan
and Joan were about to pick up Gloria, Joan's cousin from England,
so I took the opportunity to find an Internet café and catch up
with my emails. I finished at 6.45pm and so rang Bryan to get picked
up.
"We've
been trying to find you," Joan said. "Rotorua LETS rang earlier
on and asked to hear your presentation tonight. You start at 7pm."
Bryan
was quick to pick me up, and we got to the meeting by 7.10pm. Rotorua
LETS was formed about 10-12 years ago and has only about 19 members
now. Only 2 people were at that meeting, Katharine Oliver (Secretary)
and Wilma (ex-member) but the group had been going through some
difficult times recently, so I was happy to try and help if I could.
I'd noticed that the LETS groups in New Zealand were operating more
like Community Currency groups (like in Japan), so my ideas were
a little radical for these people. Whether they would accept them
and adapt to them in the future would still remain to be seen.
This
article is taken from the ebook,
Land of the LETS Green
Dollar
About
the book
|
James
Taris web sites
JamesTaris.com
LETS-Linkup.com
Rich-Bastards.com
Honey-BeeBooks.com
TheGloryOfAthens.com
TravelWithoutMoney.com
ChineseArt-ChineseArt.com
ShanghaiPhotoGuide.com
ShockProofMaterial.com
2pups.com
. 