Christmas in New Zealand

A pohutukawa tree which flowers at Christmas

A bear sized Christmas cake!

Bear in The Bay of Islands at Christmas

Can I eat all this?

Kia Ora from New Zealand!

Hello (kia ora) from New Zealand. We are here for Christmas and New Year. Unlike our other stops this feels very like England. Apart from the warm, sunny weather Christmas is like home. Turkey, christmas pudding, mince pies, carols on the green, all the same. Swimming snorkelling and lunch outside on Christmas day are rather different!
New Zealand is slightly larger than Great Britain but it is divided into two large islands, north and south island. They are separated by The Cook Straight, named after Captain Cook when he surveyed the coast in 1769.
The capital of New Zealand is Wellington which is on North Island next to The Cook Straight. We flew into the largest city, Auckand, on North Island, which has a population of a million, a quarter of the total population of  four million people in New Zealand. Britain has a population of over sixty million people in a smaller land area so it does not feel crowded here! When Cook arrived the native population were a polynesian race called Maoris. A treaty was signed between The British and The Maoris and today about 15% of the population are Maori.

Island life

Teaching at the village school

The school bus

Coral reefs

The reefs come right up to the shores of the islands so on with the mask and snorkel to see a fantastic underwater world. The colours are amazing, both fish and coral with shades from the whole spectrum that do not look real. The shapes of the coral are also varied, some smooth and rounded whilst others are spikey and sharp. There are soft corals, which move in water, and hard, rigid corals.  All provide food and shelter for a huge variety of fish. We found Nemo! Among the corals are sea anemones  where the clown fish, like Nemo, live. As large fish, like us, swim by they all dart back to the shelter of the anemone. Other types of fish use the coral as shelter. Damsel fish hide in coral of the same colour so blue damsel fish go to blue coral, green to green coral and so on.  The reefs in Fiji can grow at a rate of 5 centimetres a year, the clear water around Fiji helps this as sunlight is essential to healthy coral growth.

Food

Traditional food consists of  root vegetables and fruit with lagoon fish and pork.

The vegetables include taro, cassava, breadfruit and sweet potatoes. Pork is cooked in a ‘lovo’, this is a kind of underground oven. The pit is filled with coconut husks which are burned with coral rocks. The pig or fish is wrapped in banana leaves and the hot rocks are put around it then all buried in the sand for a few hours. The meat is delicious, very tender and succulent, with no washing up! Cassava is used like potato, we had chips, roast and mashed during our stay.  Fijians used to be cannibals and sailors who were shipwrecked were liable to be killed and eaten as they were thought to be cursed and abandoned by the gods. Captain Bligh, set adrift after the ‘mutiny on the Bounty’, had his boat chased by cannibals as he passed the islands. The channel that he went through is still called the Bligh passage.

School visit

Cassava

Is this Nemo grown up?

Big blue starfish in the coral

Blue damsel fish

Why is this called a brain coral?

There are no roads on the small islands so transport is by boat or footpaths. Each village has a kindergarten and most islands have primary schools. If the school is a long way from the village children from 6 years old sleep at the school during the week. The only secondary schools are in the 2 large islands so all children from the small islands board at school. We met some children going home from the mainland for their Christmas holiday by boat, different to the school bus! We visited the kindergarten in our local village and gave them some pens and note books as presents from Scole. They would really have preferred to keep Scoler Bear but we thought he might get hot and homesick on a Pacific Island.

Off to the islands

I want to fly this!

coral islands

Safe ashore

What a welcome

The distances between the islands is very large and although we are not going to the most remote ones it is still a 5 hour boat trip to Nacula island, one of The Yasawa Islands to the north of Viti Levu.  We decide to go by sea plane! The islands are too small to have airports so it is the only alternative to a boat. Our sea plane was very small, only holding 4 passengers, and we got into it whilst it was on land. The big floats under the wings have runners, not wheels, which means it can be pushed from the beach into the water by a tractor! The runway is the sea and it has to be quite calm for the plane to get enough speed for lift off. Once in the air it is only half an hour over islands and coral reefs to Nacula. The plane lands just off the beach and a boat comes out to meet us. There is no jetty so the boat runs up the beach and islanders come to help us out and carry our luggage ashore. We have to roll up our trousers and get our feet wet. We are staying in a bure, a thatched hut on the beach, made from local materials like leaves and small tree trunks. There is a welcoming ceremony with the islanders singing and offering us drinks. 

The distances between the islands is very large and although we are not going to the most remote ones it is still a 5 hour boat trip to Nacula island, one of The Yasawa Islands to the north of Viti Levu.  We decide to go by sea plane! The islands are too small to have airports so it is the only alternative to a boat. Our sea plane was very small, only holding 4 passengers, and we got into it whilst it was on land. The big floats under the wings have runners, not wheels, which means it can be pushed from the beach into the water by a tractor! The runway is the sea and it has to be quite calm for the plane to get enough speed for lift off. Once in the air it is only half an hour over islands and coral reefs to Nacula. The plane lands just off the beach and a boat comes out to meet us. There is no jetty so the boat runs up the beach and islanders come to help us out and carry our luggage ashore. We have to roll up our trousers and get our feet wet. We are staying in a bure, a thatched hut on the beach, made from local materials like leaves and small tree trunks. There is a welcoming ceremony with the islanders singing and offering us drinks.

Bula from Fiji!

Coral reefs and green islands

A Bula welcome!

Our next spot another set of islands in The Pacific. We flew into Nadi on the island of Viti levu, the largest in Fiji, the capital of Fiji, Suva, is on this island. There are over 1,000 islands in Fiji but only 106 are inhabited. There is only one other large island Vanua Levu. The islands are scattered over The Pacific  Ocean in an area 5 times the size of The UK. Bula means hello and welcome in Fijian, the main language. English and Hindi are the other languages. Like Hawaii the islands are all volcanic, rising from the floor of the ocean during eruptions thousands of years ago. Coral reefs have had longer to grow around Fiji and every island has coral reefs surrounding it. Fiji has more than a quarter of the coral reefs of The South Pacific. Our flight was delayed but a hurricane warning, it turned into a tropical storm but was a bumpy ride. Hurricanes occur between latitudes 5 and 20 on either side of the equator when the water temperature is over 27 degrees. With the warm water and coral we hope to spend a lot of time snorkeling.

Thanksgiving

All sorts of pumpkin pie! which one to choose?

Helping to carve the turkey.

The last Thursday in November is always a holiday in America. It celebrates Thanksgiving which is when some of the first settlers in America, The Plymouth Bretheren,  celebrated getting their first harvest in. This was very important as they knew that had their first crop failed they would not have been able to survive the winter. It is the equivalent of our Harvest Festival but is a very important day in America when families try to be together, it is nearly as important as Christmas. The traditional meal is turkey and pumpkin pie. Turkeys originated in North America and they were good food to the settlers. Some were sent back to England and farmed, they now replace the traditional goose as our Christmas meal! We had turkey and were invited to the next door neighbors to share their meal and eat pumpkin pie. Like Christmas, Thanksgiving is a time of sharing and celebration.

Hawaii The Big Island

The active crater

Lava pours into the water and the sea boils - spot the red lava!

Steep valleys and waterfalls

In charge of the helicopter!

The Cook monument. Part of British Territory

Sailing the boat!

The largest island is actually called Hawaii, the name of the state, not Big Island. It has an active volcano, Mona Loa, about 14,000 feet high. Lava is flowing from a crater into the sea making the island larger every year. The lava flows easily so there is no build up in the cone resulting in a sudden large explosion as with other volcanoes around the world. Captain James Cook, the British navigator and cartographer, landed on Kauai during his 3rd voyage to discover a North West passage from The Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. He had made 2 previous voyages, mapping the east coast of Australia, the 2 islands of New Zealand and many pacific islands. On his way back from the failed attempt to find a passage he stopped again in Hawaii, this time on The Big Island. During an argument over a stolen boat Cook was killed by the local villagers in Kealakekua Bay. There is a monument in the bay near the place where he was killed on 14th February 1776. The land the monument is on is still part of British Territory out of respect for the work of the great explorer. We had to fly above the island to see the crater and go boat  to the bay.

Another Manta

Manta rays

Manta rays swim in the ocean just beyond the reef. They can grow to 25ft wide and have the common name devilfish. This is not a good description as they are completely harmless with no sting like the stingray. They have no teeth as they feed on plankton which they collect as they filter water through their gills. They are easiest to see at night as plankton is attracted by light and the mantas follow to feed. We swam with these gentle giants just off the coast of Hawaii.

Under the sea!

A large surgeonfish

Can you guess why this is called a unicorn fish?

Yellow Tangs love to swim in the coral

This is the national fish a humuhumunukunukuapuaa

A green turtle

A hammerhead shark, harmless as they only eat crustaceans

A large stingray

The waters of the Pacific Ocean around Hawaii have a great variety of marine life. The coral reefs, which form around the cones of the volcanoes, are home to a large variety of fish. Sharks and rays swim off the reef and sea mammals like monk seals, dolphin and whales breed in the warm waters. The green turtle, a reptile, lays eggs in the sandy beaches. The national fish is the humuhumunukunukuapuaa which is triggerfish in Hawaiian!

Maui historic capital

The reef still sinks ships that miss the gap!

New roots hang down from the branches of the banyan tree and form new  trunks. 

Cruise liners anchor the other side of the reef where the whaling ships used to be seen

Sugar cane is 8 to 10 feet tall

The port of Lahaina on the west coast of Maui was the site of the island's capital and the most important centre for early western settlers. After Cook landed and mapped the islands the British and Americans  started settlements. Whaling was a very important industry in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the annual migration of the humpback whale to these waters made them easy prey. The whales give birth to 3,000lb, 14ft  long calves from December in these waters and they remain close to shore for the next few months. The early polynesian settlers also liked whale meat and could kill the new calves, seen just offshore from Lahaina, easily. There are coral reefs around large parts of the islands where they do not fall away too steeply into the ocean. Lahaina is opposite a gap in the reef so it has  protection from the reef as well as being accessible from the sea, a natural location for a port and whaling centre. Sugar cane is a major industry today as well as tourism. Cane has a very high sugar content and the pulpy residue, after the sugar has been extracted can be burnt as fuel. Unlike our sugar beet which only has one crop a year so the refineries are not working for more than half the year, cane here is cropped all year round. The weather is warm all year and crops are planted in rotation so the refineries are operating non stop. Honolulu, on the island of Oahu is the state capital today but Lahaina still has many historic buildings for the tourists to see. A huge banyan tree dominates the waterfront, planted 140 years ago, it gives shade and makes a meeting place for the many visitors.

Bear in a crater

Looking into the crater of Haleakala

Higher than Everest from base to summit

A silversword, one of the rarest plants on the planet!

Above the clouds

The big volcano on Maui is Haleakala, at more than 10,000 ft high it is actually higher than Mount Everest if measured from the ocean floor which is 19,000 ft below. To be above the clouds is amazing, especially as you are not in a plane! It is quite difficult to walk fast as the air is much thinner which means there is not as much oxygen in it. Rare plants live at this altitude, we saw the silversword which grows for 50 years, blooms and then dies. It is pollinated by endigenous ants but these are being killed by ants from South America, imported accidentally. There were fewer than 50 of these plants left at one time but they are now protected. The crater of the volcano is huge, 7 miles by 3 miles and 3,000 ft deep! There are lots of little cones inside the crater from the last eruption in 1790. This is a dormant volcano which means that it is not active and likely to erupt in the near future - but it could still erupt at some time!!!

Maui The Road to Hana

Jurassic Park

waterfalls to the ocean

Pandennis tree roots, difficult to get through!

Lots of rain - big trees!

Our yurt

This island is really 2 volcanic cones poking above the sea with a low lying, flat, fertile area linking them. A road runs all the way round the northernmost crater, but the southernmost, The Haleakala Crater is so steep on one side that the road often slips into the sea and is unsafe. We started our tour on this road to Hana, the most Southeasterly town on the island. The road winds up and down along the cliff face so much that it can take up to 4 hours to drive the 45 miles. There are steep drops into the sea with waterfalls by the road coming from the heavy rain falling on the 10,000 feet high crater. There are spectacular views with the road sometimes dipping down to a black sandy beach. The film Jurassic Park had it's opening sequence made on this coast as it has such an unspoiled, primitive look. Hana has many Hawaiian traditions that have died out in other, more accessible towns. There is a paddle canoe club, with outrigger canoes they take out of the bay to the ocean with currents that would carry them to Antarctica if they did not know how to steer and control the canoes. Cooking often uses traditional foods like breadfruit, papaya and taro. Taro is easily grown and the root crushed into a rich protein and carbohydrate paste called poi which was the staple diet of the early polynesian settlers. Not many tourists come to Hana and there is limited accommodation, we slept in a yurt, a circular tent copied from the mongolians of Asia! This was on a  cliff above the beach. There was plenty of rain during the night and we hoped the yurt would not fall into the ocean!

Goodbye Garden Island

orchids

bananas - yum yum!

waterspout

The Pacific Grand Canyon

As we toured this island the name became even more appropriate. Orchids like this one grow wild as do  bananas. Some of the most common birds are chickens! These were brought here by settlers and so many have escaped they are seen everywhere. The rich, fertile soil is caused by the island's volcanic origin. Weathered over hundreds of thousands of years crops like sugarcane, pineapple, mango, and coffee grow very easily. Kauai is no longer volcanic but the remains of the volcano that formed the island are the 5,500 feet mountains in the centre. Holes in the rocks called lava tubes cause waterspouts from the sea as big waves come in. Heavy rain in the mountains form steep valleys, one is called The Pacific Grand Canyon as at 3,000 feet deep it resembles the real thing. Humpback whales are being seen offshore at the moment. They swim from their feeding grounds off the coast of Alaska to give birth in the warmer waters around  Hawaii. There are also many green turtles around the coast as they find quiet beaches where they dig holes and lay their eggs. We nearly bumped into one whilst we were swimming, nearly 5 feet long with powerful flippers they are best avoided! A Pacific Monk Seal had a little rest on our beach and with the hundreds of different fish we have seen snorkelling this island has given us an amazing wildlife adventure.

Kauai Garden Island

We are staying right next to the sea with the sound of the Pacific surf to lull us to sleep! This island has plenty of rain fall, mainly on the mountains in the centre, some of the wettest places on earth. our southern beach has plenty of sun, good for trees and plants as well as flowers. The water is very clear for snorkelling  and as well as exotic tropical fish there are lots of green sea turtles. This is a ginger flower.