big and small animals

tom's friend ingeborg has an eight year old daughter who was four when they went on a trip to new zealand and the only thing her daughter remembers was the animals she'd seen.

mette is two (except for one trip below where she had to be four) so we'll find out what we did it all for in 4 and 6 years.

because animals was the recent theme:
close to pahara was the bencarri animal farm where one could feed all the animals including huge eals who lived there in the wild and get fed daily for already more than 50 years. they can reach an age of 100+ years and only at 90 they've 'grown up'.
mette was a bit afraid of feeding them so tom did that. also mette never did pet a rabbit but after a bit of hesitation she overcame her fear and the rabbit did too.
the big horse was fed by daddy but the shetland pony ate from her hand in a joint father-dauhter effort. the donkey was scary because he made a lot of noise and the lama almost spat a mette ('pugen!').
more animals at the salmon hatchery next door. well only one more species, really. you could get a fishing rod and fish in a pond stuffed with their salmons. some poeple caught one after 35 minutes or none at all. others caught one after 5 minutes and none afterwards. tom, the hunter, got one after three minutes. the fish wasn't even in yet and mette called out: "another one!/nog een!". first a knife needed to get stabbed in the head. mette: "visje heeft een beetje bloed/little fish has a bit of blood". and then, after another 3 minutes, tom, the hunter, struck again. more stabbing and more blood and then on the barbecue where they'd even smoke your salmon. each side a different flavor: lemon and basil, tandoori, ginger and the last side was sashimi complete with soy sauce and wasabi. yummy!

more and bigger animals
then the family drove to kaikoura. what is kaikoura known for? whales! mette had just turned four (the required age to get on the boat - laurian said mette was a four year old with the body and mind of a two year old. yeah, right!) and had to be reminded of that when she was screaming that she wanted to sit with tante nadine and the dirty diaper was also kind of suspicious.
the boat was only three kilometers on the sea and there the ocean floor dropped from 200 meters to 2800 meters, the habitat of the sperm whale. the sperm whale is number four in size of all 82 species of whales (of which 38 live by new zealand). it's got his name is because of a huge oil reservoir in his head of which the fisherman back then thought it was sperm. until they found females with the same reservoir but then the name was already given.
soon, the attention was drawn to the left side where a huge whale had just come up to catch a breath. it looked like a submarine from its size and shape. laurian had been to kaikoura before and had stayed on shore with allard, so mette and tom called her to tell het about the whale. mette: "walvisje, mama/small whale, mommy" .
then, after 5 minutes he prepared to dive, he stuck his tail above the water (great picture) and down he went.
while trying to find another whale, the captain saw a school of 60 dusky dolphins. they were jumping and playing around the boat for 15 minutes. it was a fabulous view. uncle jan even saw some dolphins playing with a shark! he reported to the student-tourguide who asked:
"a shark? was it blue on top?"
jan: "yes"
"ah, that was a blue topped shark".
he explained that dolphins can kill a shark and that they were probably trying to scare him away.

tom and laurian had received as a wedding present from jan and nadine a stay in lodges on poles - called tree houses - and they would even take care of the children so that tom and laurian could sleep in! (mette exclaiming; "mette porridge/mette pap!" at 7am). big thanks to jan and nadine!
from the lodge one could see lots of deer and on the last day laurian, tom, nephew hugo, mette and allard went for a tour on the deer farm. there were one thousand deer and three goats. the deer were bread for their antlers (gewei) and when they were fully grown (7 years old) they would be shipped to the usa to get shot in a wildlife reserve by sport hunters. great sport! just like the salmon fishing in that pond, you could say.
before those 7 years, the deer would grow fur on their antlers that would be stripped and shipped to hong kong(!) to get included in all kinds of chinese herbal medicines (yummy!) but the fur is also supposed to be good in combination with cancer treatment. or so.
the biggest deer were in a separate field. wow! they were fantastic! laurian will put on some pics.
that evening when mette went to sleep, laurian asked what she's seen that day.
mette: "little goats and little deers/geitjes en hertjes"

one more. the next day in white's bay - a campround around a gorgeous small bay - mette and tom went for a stroll and by the rocks an elderly couple was collecting mussels. mette and tom came home with 20 big fresh new zealand mussels that were cooked and eaten for lunch. mette was surprised those were animals too.

in 4 or 6 years mette can maybe re-read on allardenmette.waarbenjij.nu. in case she forgot.



ps please check the pictures that laurian has put on the log. you don't get a message of it and she doesn't put them on synchroneously with the messages so just every time when you get a mail that there is a new message, also click 'vorige/back' to see if there have been pictures added to the previous message(s).