Watsonville: Agrodome, Voltage and Hot Pools

Hmmm what to do, what to do? Our first Saturday in NZ and what is there to do? PLENTY I tell you! We have a long list to tackle while we are here so let's get to it.

We spent the entire day in Rotorua. A beautiful city known for its thrilling activities, natural attractions, entertainment, shopping and dining. We started at the Agrodome which would make any 4H member envy to no end. This famous attraction features live sheep shearing, 19 breeds of champion rams, cow milking, lamb feeding, dog demonstrations as well as a full New Zealand dog trial. Let me tell you what, they sure do give you the full experience. Just take a look.

Walker chosen to go on stage to milk a cow.

Proud certificate for milking the above mentioned cow.

Abby chosen to go on stage to participate in a contest. See who can feed a baby sheep the fastest.

Her reward for winning was all the wool from the sheep that was sheared earlier in the show. Lucky us. :/

Who knew there were so many different breeds of sheep?

Next we drove to Paradise Valley Springs Wildlife Park. This was a glorified petting zoo. It had lion cubs to pet. Although my hyper kids couldn't stand quiet long enough to be in the cage to wait their turn that we needed to leave. The zoo keeper worried they would get the resting cubs riled up. Fair enough. Didn't want any kid to lose a hand at my child's expense. So we walked on our merry way and found some other fun animals like deer, pigs, birds, wallabies, eels, alpacas, donkeys, goats and then the mother of all mothers, the lion den. They had 6 lions (5 female and 1 male, can we say sister wives?) in the cage. All though this one was surrounded with fencing and signs that said "warning, electric fence". Oh great. Maybe this will be the time my boys learn their lesson not to touch everything they see, everywhere we go! Is it just my boys or is it all boys that are told "don't touch that, put that down, don't touch it, PLEASE!" constantly?

So this is how we had to draw the picture in their head so that they would hopefully listen to us for real this time.

"Hey kids, remember that scene from Jurassic park where the boy is climbing the fence and all of the sudden the fence turns on and ZAP he goes flying off and gets hurt real bad?"

"Ya' mom, we get it."

"Do you really? Because this is serious and we don't want you guys getting hurt."

"So are you saying it's like that part in the Muppets movie when he gets shocked and gets burned up?" said younger kid

"I guess so, but do you all understand what we are saying?"

"Wooooooaaaaaaaa"

And wouldn't you guess, not even 23 seconds later guess who's hand is right up there ready in slow motion touching...the...fence!

"N-N-N-O-O-O-O-O-O-O"

Stupid me. Why would they put the electric part of the fence on the outside of the lion's den? It was on the inside of the double fenced area. But still, he should have listened. Now the lesson of "don't touch" was void again! Darn you false warning signs!

To rest from that dramatic experience we drove a little ways off to the Polynesian Spa. Hot mineral bathing pools that smell a little less than desirable but feel oh so good. We swam in freshwater pools that were filled with alkaline mineral water leaving our skin "soft and supple". It was a great way to end our long fun filled day.