Allison and Amelia's Adventures Abroad

  Hello! Today I am going to Australia! My time in New Zealand has been amazing and I would definitely recommend it. The people there were lovely and overall it was just such an amazing experience. The places in NZ I would recommend that people go there the   most are Aukland, Wellington (although it is very windy), and Christchurch. My favourite part of being in NZ was probably the Antarctic centre because I got to learn so much, and I got to feel what it was like to drive around in the Antarctic with a vehicle called a Hagglund! The driver would go around a course and tell people about the Hagglund. There were different stations for different things and my favourite was the one where they drove over a 1m gap! Apparently the Hagglund can drive over 1.8m gaps and rotate 45 degrees! Amazing!    Here are some photos of my experience in New Zealand: Lake view! So pretty. Pulling the corn out of the sulfur water Eggs at the kiwi centre Looking for penguins at the pohatu ...

  Nov. 19 2023 Hello! 2 days ago I drove 3 hours from Hanmer Springs and on the way stopped off at a little cafe in a town for lunch. Yesterday morning I went to go feed wild eels with sausage before I drove to Darfield from Hokitika and it was pretty cool! There must have been at least 20 eels in the small pond. In Hokitika I also went to sunset point where you can get an magnificent view of the sunset.  During the drive  I listened to an audio book, slept and ate lunch. I stoped for 2 hikes in Arthur’s Pass  before  reaching Darfield, and walked about 3 kilometres. The hikes I went on were  called bridal veil falls and devils punchbowl. The water was a beautiful blue and the water coming down the waterfall was splashing me on the viewing platform. The hight of the waterfall for devils punchbowl was a jaw-dropping  430 feet (131 meters)! I had to cross 2 bridges to get to the waterfall at the end of both hikes and they both went over a ri ver that was...

 Hello! Yesterday I drove to Hanmer Springs from Kaikoura and it was an amazing drive! I stopped to see the seals on the way and it was super cool! Their teeth are very sharp and they can run really fast. Today I went to the biggest water park in New Zealand and it was so much fun! I stayed there for the whole day and went on all 4 water slides. There were 2 water slides that were more calm with led lights inside, and 2 water slides that had huge drops at the bottom. All the pools were at least 36 degrees celsius which was very good because it was super windy! There were about 5 geothermal pools that were 37-39 degrees celsius and I couldn’t put my head into the water because there was a possibility that there was something in the water that if it got into your body it could make you very sick (I am not sure what the something is).  More about the drive though, the scenery was gorgeous and there were lots of mountains with trees arranged in a pattern that makes it look like a ...

 Hiiii it’s Amelia!!!!!! We are staying at a hostel and (the other place we stayed at was also a hostel) we only share a kitchen with other people and the other place we had to share a bathroom and a kitchen and I got used to it (and that was in Wellington)! We went to the biggest water park that’s in New Zealand and there is a water slide that goes round and round and round then through a tunnel and then comes out and goes down then up then down and then it’s over and it was so much fun. I even want to go on it again and it’s name was conical thrill!!! There was also another water slide and it’s name was Super Bowl and I really really liked it!!!! And it was the best day ever!!!!!

 Hi we are in Wellington! We went to Rotorua and we got to go to the same hot tub two times! We also went to Hobbiton and we got to see all of the hobbit houses! They built five Hobbit houses to only appear only for seven minutes in the Hobbit movies! We  also went and learned about the Māori culture. I liked it because all of the fighting and I thought it was really cool! I also really really liked seeing the kiwi birds they were adorable! And I also have a kiwi bird stuffy and her name is Rosemary ❣️

  Hello! I went to the thermal springs/Māori village today, and walking past it was without a doubt it was the worst experience of my entre life. It was absolutely disgusting and it made me sick. The water gave off the smell of sulfur and in multiple places it was very strong, so I would not recommend it if you are sensitive to smells. The water was being heated by the rocks underground and it reached 100 degrees Celsius! The Māori people use the water for cooking food and bathing. To cook some food they use a box then trap the steam inside it and let the food cook inside. Sometimes they also put the food in a potato sack and drop it in the water to let it cook. For bathing, the water is very hot so they let it trickle down a stream for a while to let it cool down before it gets put into a tub-like thing.   I also went to a Māori culture show and watched a war dance. The culture show was amazing to watch but I forget most of the stuff I learned. The war dance was super cool be...

Hello! Yesterday I went to Hobbiton, and it was amazing! If you go, I would entirely recommend the lunch tour over the other tour because the food is delicious and they are great if you have allergies. I find it so funny how they built the entire Hobbiton set for 14 minutes in total. Seven minutes in the “Lord of the rings” series and seven minutes in the “The Hobbit” movies. Crazy right!? The detail that they put into the set for just those 14 minutes was absolutely exceptional! They painted moss on the side of a wooden frame and it looked so real! Each hobbit hole had a different theme, and for most of them, there were props that you could use to take photos. They didn’t actually hire 3 foot tall actors to play the hobbits, they just used a bigger hobbit hole to make them look shorter and a smaller hobbit hole to make everyone else look taller.  I also went to the Hot Springs and it was amazing! Have you ever wondered how they work? Well, hot springs are springs (a place where wa...

   Hello! I have been in NZ for 1 week now and have visited some pretty cool places, and learned some amazing things! In New Zealand, there are lines in the hills! Do you know why this is? Well, this is because New Zealand is coming out of the ocean as fast as our fingernails grow due to the tectonic plates bringing it out of the water. The people in New Zealand chop trees down which destabilizes stabilize the ground and causes it to slip down because of gravity. Gravity pulls it down, and it creates these little bumps in the hills, which, from a far distance, looks like lines in the hills, because of the ground moving down.   Today, November 7 I went to a glowworm cave and a Kiwi bird sanctuary. Did you know that kiwi birds get kicked out of the house when they are 14-30 days old? If they don’t leave by then, it’s parents will quite literally kick it out of the house! Once it has left the house, it will no longer be allowed to come back to the house. If the kiwi bir...

 Hello! I am in Auckland, New Zealand, and will only be in Auckland for one more day. While I was in Auckland, I noticed a few things. The first thing is that everybody drives on the left, and it was the same in Fiji too. There is also a lot of fresh fruit here, but mainly kiwis. They are not as sour as in Calgary, and they have lots more varieties of kiwi such as golden kiwi and red kiwi. You are also able to hike up many dormant volcanoes, and there are 53 dormant volcanos in Auckland. I climbed up one and it was about a 10 minute hike up. I went to the beach with my mom, dad, and sister, and found quite a lot of sea animals! There was a red crab that we found and surprisingly, it didn’t hurry away when it saw us. It stayed in one place and we were able to get very close to it (3cm away). I also found a very strange anemone that looked a little bit like seaweed, but cut off into smaller chunks.  The beach we went to                 ...

 Jenn here- I have a blog post from Amelia to post from Fiji, and one from today! Please ask her questions if you have any. We had requests to open commenting so people should now be able to comment without having to sign up for an account   November 1, 2023 Hi it’s Amelia! Today we went to the garden of the sleeping giant it was lots of fun and we went to a lookout spot and it was really really cool! We also went to a bakery and got a leamington six sausage rolls and a loaf of bread.we played at the pool at our house and had so much fun!! I learned that only certain type of milk can be left out of the fridge!!! November 5, 2023 New Zealand has been really good so far! There is a lot to see here! There is also a lot to do here. We are staying with my dad’s cousin. Today we went out for lunch and we got (me and my sister)pancakes and we also had bacon mac and cheese! New Zealand is different from Calgary because there is a lot of ocean and it’s hotter than Calgary! The foods he...

I had an amazing time in Fiji and am sad to leave, but I also learned quite a few things: Coral bleaching: Algae lives is responsible for giving coral it’s color. When things stress the algae out,(like high temps) it releases substances that harm the coral, so coral then kills the algae which makes the coral lose it’s colour. A coral can recover if the conditions improve again.    Fiji school system: In grade (year) 8, the Fijian kids take exams that determine whether or not they get into high school. Because of this, it is very common at some schools for the kids to live at the school with their teachers the month before their exams. This is because it is such a far walk from their house to school, so it gives all kids an equal opportunity to study and learn. The grocery store here is very interesting. Milk and eggs aren’t stored in the fridge, and there is no decaf coffee. We also found out that the cereal selection is very tiny, and when we went shopping for cereal, the box...