kiwisforthesummer2017: Monday, July 17th

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Monday, July 17th - Trip to Waipara

We started out the day at Pegasus Town, a semi-green development and learned about some sustainable practices. We briefly visited the beach there, then continued on to Amberly for tea time. From there we drove to the first winery (Pegasus Bay winery) to learn about the Greening Waipara project. Wineries planted natives on their properties to promote native bush in the area; at Pegasus winery we walked the biodiversity trail and fed beef jerky to some eels in a nearby pond. The eels didn't really like the beef jerky, but one of the eels was very interested in Dr. Hostetler's GoPro (waterproof camera thingy) and "booped" up against it on video.

After this, we went to another winery (Waipara Hills winery) where students learned about winemaking. From there we went to another winery participating in the project and looked at the native plants on their Greening Waipara trail. We met Daryl (a local farmer) and watched his dog (Sis) muster sheep around the pasture. We leaned about sheep farming. We also got settled into the Waipara Sleeper Cars (owned by Daryl's brother), where there was a cute little dog (about the size of a baby bunny rabbit) that I was terrified of and an old calico cat named Krissy.

That evening we returned to Daryl's house and had a delicious homemade NZ dinner and pavlova for dessert. We played with their dog, Coco Channel, and one of the cutest kittens ever, Simba. And then it was time for the lip sync contest! Everybody did great, but the judges (Colin, Daryl, and his daughter, Kate) decided that the winner was my dad and I. The runner-up was Allison and Isabella, who preformed a very spirited version of "Africa" by Toto. Good job everybody!

Cheers,

Tupelo :)

(with a little help from Dad)