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

Tanzania

Tanzania and Zanzibar

We went to Zanzibar. Zanzibar is a small island off the coast of Tanzania. It’s population is 705,000 and its capital is Zanzibar city.  Zanzibar is part of Tanzania.  The countries bordering Tanzania are Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia, Malawi. 

This is Zanzibar’s flag. They have their own flag, like Ontario has a flag in Canada.

This is Tanzania's flag

When we stepped off of the plane, it was HOT and even worse the airport had no air conditioning !! It was a very small airport but very very busy.  It took us a long time to get through customs.  I was going crazy because it was so hot and busy.

Then we drove to Stone Town. Stone town is the old part of Zanzibar city and we were staying just outside of it.  

We decided to go on a tour around Stone town. First, we went to a market. The market was full of spices and fruit.  It was fun to see. We enjoyed smelling all the different spices and looking at all the exotic fruits.

There was also a fish market but it was really smelly so we decided not go into it.



We went to see the old slave market. This part is very sad. 

 The slave buyers would trade, bribe and kidnapped people because so many people wanted to buy slaves.  The 19th century was the busiest for the slave trade with 40,000-50,000 slaves being sold a year. When the slaves arrived to Zanzibar, they were striped naked and cleaned. They were forced to line up in rows and the potential buyers would inspect them. 

The slaves were held in cells. Women and kids in one and men in the other.  There were 40-50 slaves in each room.  They were chained to the wall or ceiling and there weren't any washrooms. It was a very sad to see these rooms and to learn about this history. 

In 1873, the slave market was closed and buying slaves was made illegal.  


After that, we saw Freddie Mercury's house. Freddie Mercury was the lead singer of Queen. He was born on September 5th, 1946 in Zanzibar.  He died on the 24th of November, 1991 in London to a disease called Aids. When he was young he moved to India and stayed there until he was 17. He then moved to England and when he was 22 he started his music career.  

When we were in Stone Town, we had this special drink. I forget what it was called, so I'm going to call it drink. Now this drink was made out of sugar cane, ginger and lime. It was so sugary and sweet...I Loved it.

We went to the beach and stayed at a resort.

  When we were there we went on a tour of Prison Island and went snorkelling.  We took a small wooden boat to Prison Island, also called Changuu. Changuu was a place where rebellious slaves were made to stay. It also served as a coral mine. The main reason we went there was to see the giant tortoises. They were so big I couldn’t believe it. We were allowed to touch and feed the tortoises but we had to watch out because there were giant tortoise poops everywhere.Here is a picture of me

compared to the tortoise. 

How did the tortoises get there? In 1919, a British governor, gave 4 tortoises to Prison Island and the tortoises started to breed and made tons of other tortoises.   One of the original tortoises is still there. He is 158 years old!

After the tortoises we were back on the boat to go snorkeling. Our tour guide took us to a nice and deep spot and dropped us off. We saw a bunch of fish but I saw an eel. It was cool. 

Then we went back to the beach and went back to our hotel.


We went to Dar es salaam. Dar es salaam is a city in Tanzania. We went there to meet my dad's friend Sri from university and his family. We went to a boat club and my Dad and I went kayaking and tipped over while riding a wave. It was funny. Being with Sri and his family was really fun. If you're reading this Sri say hi to Isaac, Jasmine, and Louise. :)

That was Tanzania and Zazibar.
Sam