My Top ten

Here are my top ten favourite things on this trip!!

10. Walking around Rome.  I learned so much there, had a really fun time and ate some delicious food. 

9. Porto. It was my Dad's birthday and  I liked watching him have fun and driving around the city.

8. My day trip to Switzerland. The place we where at in Switzerland was very beautiful and had a lot of good food.

7.  The road-trip of Greece. The road-trip of Greece was BEAUTIFUL and we went to some amazing places that I recommend going to.

6. Gaming district in Tokyo. The Gaming district in Tokyo was so cool it had 5-story arcades and had lots of other things like food.

5. Nara Deer park. The Nara deer park was so cool and beautiful and I love deer!

4. Hanging out with my aunt in Japan. This is pretty self-explanatory  I love my aunt she is funny, kind and I had a really fun time with her.

3.Israel. Israel was one of my all time favourite places to go it was amazing!!

2. Five star resort. Was my birthday present! I had such a amazing time with my family and had a lot of good food (you know the important stuff)

1. Portugal. Portugal was my all time favourite because it was the start of the trip and I had so much fun. It is also the home of Pastel de nata.  

This will be my last entry for my blog!  

See ya,

Sam 

South Island

 The Beautiful South Island. 

We went on to the inter-islander ferry where we traveled from Wellington (A city in the northern island) all the way to Picton (a city in the southern island). We stayed there for a couple of days. 

Our next stop was Kaikōura. Kaikōura is a costal town known for its wildlife, its sperm whale population and for the New Zealand fur seals.

We decided to go for a walk in the trails of Kaikōura, and we were very lucky because we saw a lot of New Zealand fur seals, including one seal that flopped around the boardwalk. 

The trail was very beautiful. There were so many beautiful places with some big rocks that you could climb so you could get a beautiful view of the ocean. It was also really nice to smell the sea while you were walking. It was a really enjoyable walk.

Next, we went sea kayaking. My Mom and I were in one kayak and my brother and Dad in another. When we were on the tour we saw some more fur seals and two penguins. I ended up getting very cold because it was windy, and wet so I didn't really like it all that much but I would still do it again.

Then, we left Kaikōura it was really fun I enjoyed it much more then I expected. I would recommend going there.

After that, we drove to Christchurch. Christchurch is a city in New Zealand known for its English heritage and old buildings. Sadly, it is also known for the very destructive earthquakes it had.  We went to the earthquake museum, called Quake City, to learn more about it.  The city of Christchurch is still recovering from the earthquakes.

We went to the Canterberry museum. The museum had a lot of cool exhibits like the Arctic , the Maoris (who were the first people to live in New Zealand), Dinosaurs and more. We went to this huge playground that had 20 foot slides, a zipline, trampolines, and slides that went under a hill. It was very enjoyable. 

Next up, we went to another sheep farm called Sheer-vue. Unlike the first farm that only had 3 sheep this one had 3050 sheep , five Alpacas , four dogs, a cat, and a pig. 

When we first got there we got a tour of the farm and saw the dogs round up the sheep it was really cool. My brother also was able to chop up some sweet beets and we fed them to their Alpacas and some of the sheep.

We then made our way to a smaller town ski town called Queenstown.Queenstown is known for its cool adventure spots.  We decided to go on a helicopter tour! It was my whole family's except my Dad's. We flew up to of the top a snow capped mountain. The view was amazing! You could see all of Queenstown. It was an amazing experience I would totally go again. 

 

We also went on something called a Hydro Shark. The Hydro Shark is a shark shaped water vehicle that jump up to 18 feet, dive 5 feet deep, and go up to 80km!! It was so much fun. 

We went to Frans Josef. There we went to a National Wildlife Centre where we saw Kiwis not to be confused with the fruit. Kiwis are a bird and are about 14 to 18 inches tall. They have four main predators they are cats, dogs, possums and stoats ( a small weasel like animal). Kiwis are also an endangered species. 

Another thing we learned while we were at the Wildlife Centre is about invasive species. For those of you that don't know what those are they are animals or plants that were brought over from another country. The Wildlife Centre was very interesting.

Finally, our last spot on the southern island was Punakaiki.  We went to see the pancake rocks and the blowholes. A blowhole is when water comes and crashes up on rocks that sends steam up and it blasts out of a hole on the top of the rock then more steam builds at the bottom the it repeats.

Then, we went back onto the ferry and left to go back to the North island. 

See ya,

Sam <3      

Bye New Zealand. It was fun.  Getting ready to fly back to Canada during COVID. 

   

 

New Zealand - Quarantine and the North Island

New Zealand is a small island off the coast of Australia. 

It’s population is 5 million. It’s capital is Wellington. 

The flag looks like this:

The flag's meaning is the symbol of the realm, government and the people of New Zealand. The blue background represents  the blue squadron of the royal navy. The stars represent the southern cross to show the country's location in the southern hemisphere. 

New Zealand is made of two different parts: the North island and the South island. We might be going to both were not totally sure. Right now, we are on the North Island, in Auckland.  

When we arrived to New Zealand,  we had to go into quarantine right away... yay. We thought after our quarantine, we would be able to go explore the country, but soon after we arrived, New Zealand went into a level 4 lockdown. Nooooooooo!!! Lockdown was very long, I think it was 7 weeks. We didn't do too much.

When we finally got out of lockdown and moved to level 2, we drove to a new house. The cool thing was this time it was different. My parents surprised Nate and I by going to a house with sheep and alpacas!!! It was amazing. All of the 5 Alpacas where girls and the 3 sheep were boys. The people who owned the place had 4 dogs Ruffus, Princess, Fei Fei, and Lucy. They were adorable. We got to feed the sheeps and alpacas and go into their pen. It was really fun. 

Next we went exploring. We first went to Maraetai, which is pronounced mar-a-tie.It was beautiful. Then we decided to go to Kawakawa Bay for a picnic. It was a wonderful picnic and a wonderful day of exploring.

We went to Rotorua.

We went to Rotorua also known as Sulphur city. It’s called Sulphur city because there are geothermal waters that make the whole town smell like sulphur. In Rotorua, there are a bunch of geysers and geothermal pools and a bunch more fun things to do. 

We went luging..What is a luging?? A luge is kind of like a go kart but more eco friendly that has no batteries. So how do you move them?? There was a lever you would pull the lever all the way back and you would brake. When you move the lever a little bit forward and you would zip down the track Nate and I got to go 7 times each. We loved it. Even though I crashed into a crash pad. It was still fun.

We checked out the Redwood forest and went on the tree walk. The redwood tree in this forest is a cousin to the Californian redwood, the tallest tree in the world. The tree walk was 20 feet up in the air and we could explore the forest on bridges. It was cool and cold. The bark of the redwood trees is very delicate so we weren’t allowed to touch them.

The Waitomo glowworm cave is a cave with a bunch of glow worms in it. Glow worms are not really worms but they are larvae of a fly called the fungus gant. The fungus gnat look like mosquitoes but they're not exactly the same. The fungus gnats don’t have a mouth so the females only survive for 5 hours and the males only survive for 5 days! The larva or the glow worms attract their food with bioluminescence ( a chemical reaction with the light energy in the animal or plants) and a sticky substance from their mouths. The bugs that they eat think that they are stars so they fly up to them but they get eaten instead.This is the life cycle of the glow worm. 

The cave was made of natural limestone; it was so cool and beautiful. I really liked the place, it was so cool I hope I can go there again.

Come back soon for more New Zealand. 

Bye