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Sunday, May 7

Bike trip!!!

This is my bike trip. On Friday, our day off, my host Grant let me take his bike to Rotorua! Grant happens also to be the youth pastor at Lifezone, the church we worked with in Tauranga. We got talking about motorbikes, and he said "You can take mine out if you want." That was an absolute blast. The most fun I'd had since last being on a motorbike. An incredible blessing, especially because ever since being in New Zealand, I wish I had a bike. So on our ministry day off, I took it to Rotorua, about a couple of hours away.


But first, I took it out the night before for a test run, and absolutely loved it. I took this gorgeous stretch of highway right next to the ocean and all lit up at night.







The next day I set off to Rotorua with a packed lunch. Here's the bike in the city that smells like sulfur.





I then proceeded to the museum, and outside they had this traditional Maori war canoe.





That's lake Rotorua, a fair sized lake. The whole of Rotorua and the lake resides in a giant crater. This is still a geothermally active area. That's why it smells like sulphur!



Here's the museum and the blue baths. (An old swimming pool.)





The museum used to be a private bathhouse during the world wars, featuring some bizarre treatments. Advertisements from early last century drew weary soldiers from around the world with claims of natural healing. The place was tended to by doctors, and the whole building was elaborately designed to allow space for hot water, pipes, and natural heating. Here is a picture of a mock scene in the basement of this bathhouse.




Of course I couldn't have gotten this far without Grant's trusty honda.



There was a neat sunset over Rotorua, which meant I had a long drive back home in the dark.




On the way I stopped at Zorb, Rotorua. Zorbing is an exotic activity invented by kiwis, by means of inserting you in a giant inflatable cushioned ball. Do a google search on "Zorb" and you'll see what I mean. Unfortunately they were closed so I didn't actually see any action.






And that concludes my bike trip. It was fun while it lasted.

April 5 - 6th.

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posted by Jordan Olson @ 11:13 PM 1 comments

Tauranga

From April 3rd to the 9th, I was part of a ministry team to an east coast city, Tauranga. (Pronounced "Tower-unga".) Tauranga has a very recognizable landmark, and that is Mount Maunganui. The city is clustered around a large harbor, almost all situated around Mount Maunganui, which is connected to the mainland by a narrow strip of land. (The Wharf, I presume.) You can see it in the photos below, and for ships or boats to enter the harbor, they have to squeeze between the mount and an island. The island, which name I don't recall, basically fills the opening of the harbour. This island basically continues the smooth coastline, so if you look on a map, you'll see how interesting Tauranga is.



So here is "the mount" from the docks/harbour.





Here it is from the beach, now we're looking at it from the south side. (South/west if you consider the angle of the coast.)





Of course I had to tramp it to the top...





There's the wharf, and inland. You can see the south/west coast that continues unbroken. (But ends at the mount.)






Here you can see part of the island north/east of the mount, as well as inland Tauranga!




Coming back down I saw some sheep debarking on a cruise ship.





Moving on, we did alot of work that week in Tauranga, including a fair bit of work with the youth there. One day we did a skit at a couple of schools, with a group known as "Cool Bananas". They were definitely very cool. New Zealand has a "Bible in Schools", which is a privilege by law. Churches can then go into schools and have a class on "religious instruction".





Here's a picture of me and one of the youth, Sarah. It was a very cool youth group, and I'm going to miss them all!




April 3 - 9th

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posted by Jordan Olson @ 10:31 PM 0 comments