This morning we got up and ready to go to the zip line thing in Waiheke. My mom had found it in a bullion of things to do in Auckland. We did a drive to a ferry, ( the kind that cars drive onto) and waited for an hour as we slowly trudged, it should I say motored, accrue the bay to Waiheke island.
We had to go up a really steep hill, until we finally found the EcoZip place. We went in a group with five other people, all very nice. There were three zip lines. 1. Vineyard Cruise (Because you are cruising over a vineyard) 2. Jungle Ride 3. The Big One (I forgot the actual name, but it is the biggest and fastest one, so it seems appropriate). Once we were done with all of the zip lines, we had to hike all the way back up to the place we started. The zip line company has all of this land full of beautiful plants and trees. So on our hike back up, our zip line/nature guide told us all about the native and non native plant and tree species. There was one tree called a Totara, which was a ginormous tree that was harvested. But when Europeans came to the island, it was heavily logged, so now there are only five of those big tree is there private park. There are also a few others, but not many. They can grow to 3 meters wide and up to 50 meters tall. Gargantuan! There was also a native Nikau palm tree, the most harvested palm tree ever. The only problem is it takes FOREVER to grow. A palm tree up to your knee is ten years old! But they also have help. The native bird eats the fruit that it grows, and then it flushes it out the other end. Wherever it lands, a new little palm tree starts to grow. The circle of life. There was also these little mushrooms that we growing on trees. They were a beautiful orange color.
After we had gotten everything off, we drove back words the ferry. We still had a little time before the ferry arrived, so we went to a statue park. Turns out, it was a statue Car park. There was only one statue and a big open dirt parking lot. We narrowly made it onto the ferry, and after that we went back.