Excerpts from their blog:
July 4
We went to Wai-O-Tapu, www.waiotapu.co.nz meaning ‘Sacred Waters’, New Zealand’s most colourful and diverse volcanic area, Boiling lakes and mud pools with names like Devil’s Home, Rainbow Crater, Thunder Crater, Artist’s palette, a panorama of hot and cold pools and steaming hissing fumoles with an amazing variety of ever changing colours, The Primrose Terrace, The Sacred Track. Champagne Pool, to name a few, with colours of green, orange, purple, white, brown, red, yellow and black, all natural due to different mineral elements.
We then left Taupo to drive through to Havelock North, where we spent a weekend spent absorbing the true magnificence of nature in an environment that is respected and well cared for by the surrounding communities.
July 5
Chip and Bere (the two toy rhinos) have become ‘celebrities’ with over 1000 people following their travels on our blog on the Environment Africa website. We also did more work and editing on our presentation for two talks the following day, the first being at Rotary Hastings at lunchtime and an evening talk at Birdwoods Gallery.
July 6 – our first Rotary presentation. It went very well and it is always amazing how many people will say after a talk and chat. After seeing the presentation and hearing Charlie talk, they now want to go there and see it for themselves.
We met the CEO of a company called Sirtrack. They have been researching and developing tracking devices for animal and bird applications all over the world. They have just finished developing a new radio tracker for rhino that is inserted into the horn. This device will be used soon in South Africa. They use a piece of wood as a rhino horn.
Next stop was Birdwoods Gallery, owned and managed by Louise Stobart, a Zimbabwean who has created a small piece of Africa in a church in the village of Havelock North. Louise in true Zimbabwe style, pulled out all the stops for the evening presentation where a record 90+ people attended.
The evening was a great event and over 1000 NZ$ was raised for the projects. Birdwoods has also adopted the Africa Green Fund as it’s charity of choice and funds will be supporting projects within the Green Zambezi Alliance.
Louise travels back to her home country, Zimbabwe once a year to purchase pieces of artwork and carvings from artists in local communities and ships them to New Zealand to be appreciated by the Kiwis. She is a true conservationist and passionate about helping conservation and communities back in Zimbabwe.
Post published in: Environment