Showing posts with label New Zealand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Zealand. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Day one of being shoeless!



I am so blessed to live in a country where it’s not the oddest thing to see people walking around without shoes. It is not unusual especially for children to be barefoot at the supermarket or running around in town. Because of that I am hoping this will be a great experience and I won’t feel to odd.

If you know me you know I love to walk around barefoot anyway so I would think this should be quite enjoyable!

Well day one was sure interesting! I decided I was going to go about my normal routine and not worry about shoes. Since it is school break I spent a lot of time around the house so that was a nice relief. It was odd to feed the Chooks and worry about hoping not to step in chook poo. Thankful I did not step in chook poo today! Yay!

Going out to feed the lambs was another story! I had to walk across really sharp rocks to get to them, I walked so slowly and took each step very carefully. It didn’t hurt as much as I thought it was going to!
The weird part was going to the shops. I thought I would be so confident as I drove to the shops. I will admit I did put a pair of sandals in my car just in case L When I walked into the first store I felt like all eyes were on my feet. I felt like everyone around me was thinking “why is she not wearing shoes?” “her feet must be so dirty” Thankfully the more I walked around the less awkward I felt. The next shop though felt the same way. I found myself walking down the shoe isle and all of a sudden thought “why am I looking at shoes when I don’t have shoes on my feet?” It was an odd feeling. The weirdest shop was the supermarket. The floor in there was so cold and I felt like everyone was looking at me like I was weird! I saw a few kids without shoes and it made me feel a little more normal. Walking through car parks was also strange just hoping I wouldn’t step on glass.

It was an amazing first day and I was reminded that this must be what it feels like when you don’t have the things we have to meet our needs. I thought of kids that come from families that can’t afford new clothes of Shoes and have to go to school in the torn, dirty clothes they have. They must feel self conscious and thinking everyone is looking at them. I definitely got a better perspective on things today and look forward to what comes next!

 you can read all about shoeless and get more details on my other blog

Shoeless in New Zealand

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

Limestone Island



This Wednesday for CHEW we went over to Limestone Island. It was awesome!

We met the ranger around 10am take his boat across to the channel to the Island. Limestone Island is a reserve; they have worked really hard over the years to get the island cleared of pests and make it a place to bread kiwi and other animals, insects, and plants that need to be protected. They have even gotten rid of all the ants except one kind. There are still a few pests on the island that they are still working on getting rid of.









After two trips the whole group was on the island and, Ranger gave us a history of the island. It is truly a fascinating history you can read all about the island here http://www.limestoneisland.org.nz/ The island was orignally Matakohe Island when the Maori were settled on it. The Maori had kumara plants all over the island. After the Maori the island was used as a cement factory which is what all the ruins are from. When the cement factory was abandoned and starting to fall down the air force came in a bombed the site so that it would just be rubble and less dangerous. Once our history lesson was complete, the Ranger took us on a tour of the island and showed us all about the traps and things they do on the island. He has only been living on the island a month but anyone can tell he truly loves it there!





We went up to the site of the Pa (moari settleing). It was beautiful from the top! It is always amazing to see Whangarei from a different angle and from the island it was amazing! We went to the ruins of the old cement factory, and he even showed us how he finds the Kiwi’s on the island.



Pa Site











finding Kiwi's


Kiwi egg

It was definitely the best CHEW that we have had and everyone really enjoyed the day even with the heat.