Nature
Today, we visited one of New Zealand national parks at Abel Tasman[website]… this is one of New Zealand’s most popular parks because of its golden beaches, beautiful weather, and places to enjoy hiking, kayaking and other outdoor sports. We went in by Aqua Taxi, and were treated to some wild water play, and a chance [...]
After yesterday’s class on Maori culture with Kim, today he took us to the local Whakatu Marae [see website], the meeting area for Nelson’s iwi (tribal groups). First we experienced a powhiri (formal welcome) – we were called onto the marae grounds by one of the elders, then we all sat inside the wharenui meeting [...]
Today (and tomorrow), we split into 2 groups. The Year 1 students went indoor rock climbing while the Year 2 students did a cycling tour of Stoke – a suburb of Nelson. The cyclists had a chance to visit some of Nelson’s original historic buildings – both over 170 years old!
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Continue reading about Day 12-13 – Cycling and rock climbing
New Zealand is a unique country because its flora and fauna are different from anywhere else in the world. However, because it is so different, it means our natural resources are easily threatened by imported animals, plants, and bugs. To protect them, Nelson has set up the Brook Waimarama Sanctuary [see website]… this will be [...]
Continue reading about Day 11 – The Brook Waimarama Sanctuary
After a day and a half of hard study, we decided to give the students some fun. Happy Valley is the place in Nelson for outdoor adventures. It’s located about 30 minutes from the city [see Happy Valley website].
Ten of us decided to try the Skywire experience. This is a cage with 4 seats that [...]
Wow, hard to believe we’ve been in New Zealand for a week! Today is a day off for the students, so most of them are relaxing around the city with their host families. I started my day by going to church at Nelson’s beautiful Christ Church Cathedral [website]… a 5-minute walk from where I am [...]
Bright and early on Saturday morning, 5 girls, Yoshi, Miho (centre member) and I walked up to the hilltop to view the sunrise on a beautiful cloudless day! We then started another busy day:
View the sunrise
Breakfast (toast, fruit, yoghurt, etc)
Peace activities: A series of discussion activities and songs on peace
Scone and breadmaking
Tour of the large [...]
Over the last few days, we’ve had an amazing stay at the Riverside Community [website]. This is an alternative community near Nelson based on the ideas of pacifism and cooperative living. They have a property of about 200ha on which they raise animals, fruit, and vegetables, run a cafe, host events, plus other businesses. We [...]
After another morning of hard study, we again headed out for afternoon activities. This time we had a chance to finally see some of New Zealand’s famous countryside – sheep, cows, sheep, ducks, and more sheep! We started out with a visit to a berry farm where we had a chance to pick beautiful strawberries [...]
The students are discovering that the morning lessons are hard… really hard! There are only about 3 students from Seinan in each class, so they’re having to use English for the full 3 hours! This is a great chance for them to brush up their skills!
However, we decided to give them a break this afternoon [...]
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Cool sunglasses
Walking with Yoshi
Bush track
Nao with a cicada
At the top
Centre of NZ!
Group jump
Super model Yukari
Walking down with Gertrude
This morning, the students were all divided up into different classes. This offered them the chance to work with students from many [...]
Today was probably our most exciting adventure! We went out to Wild Play, and did the Tree to Tree Course! This involved climbing rope ladders, walking across rope bridges, and sliding down zip-lines. All of the students finished the first two stages, which took us up to 15m off the ground. Nine of the students [...]
Today was a public holiday in Canada (Labour Day) so there were no classes or activities planned. So, I decided to do some walk-training on Newcastle Island. This is the ferry… they’re very cute but practical – they travel at about 15km/h, carry 12 people, need only 45cm of water, and use only 1 litre [...]
Downtown in Nanaimo, very close to my hotel, there is a river in which salmon are beginning to spawn. Every day, the mouth of the river is crowded with fishermen trying to catch ‘pinks’ or pink salmon. These are smaller than sock-eye salmon, but still very delicious apparently. There are always a few seals around [...]
