A Day in Kerikeri

Manuka Honey

The largest beehive I have ever seen

 Today Andrew and I spent the day exploring the town of Kerikeri, NZ. We had no specific plans other than drive until we found something interesting or something that our dive instructor from the last few days mentioned.

We started with a visit to the Honey Shop, home of New Zealand's largest beehive. It was certainly a large beehive! About 1 story tall and home to thousands of honeybees. As soon as we walked into the shop we could smell the delicious scent of honey. Manuka honey, honey that bees gather from the Manuka tree in New Zealand, is supposed to have very beneficial health and medical properties. It is also quite tasty! They had samples of the honey, testers of all the honey-based lotions, and a tour of the beehive for those who are brave enough to step inside. Andrew and I, of course, had to do it, for all that creepy crawly insects make me squirm. It was actually quite neat. We could see the Queen bee searching the honeycomb for empty holes to lay her eggs, bees producing honey in the hive and, most interesting of all, the bee butt wiggle dance! Bees who have found a good source of pollen give directions to other bees in the hive by moving in circles and shaking their booty. Apparently how long they shake and the direction they move gives the other bees accurate enough information to find the exact same flowers, even miles away. It was neat to see.

From the Honey Shop we kept driving and stopped in at the Makana Confectionary, which sells delicious chocolates and treats. We also stopped at a small market that had some fun ceramics, some nice jewelry, and some delicious fudge.

Rainbow Falls

After all that shopping we were hungry so we decided it was time for a nice picnic lunch. We drove to the trailhead and then walked to Rainbow falls, first enjoying the view from the top, then finding a nice sunny rock by the pool at the base of the falls to enjoy our lunch on.

Picnic Lunch at the Falls

After lunch we decided to take the suggestion of one of the instructors and stop in Waipapa for ice cream. It's one of those little tiny hole-in-the-wall places that tourists would simply drive past and all of the locals would laugh at them. Fresh seafood, gluten AND dairy free fish batter, and home of New Zealand's largest ice creams. We were somewhat smart and went for the single and double scoops. My double scoop (I wanted 2 flavours and couldn't decide!) was actually closer to about 5 scoops of ice cream! Andrew's single scoop was about 3 scoops. Apparently they do offer a 'baby' cone that is one normal sized scoop. They also, however, offer the "Gut Buster", the "Death by Ice Cream", and the "Road to Hell", which are 7, 9, and 12 scoops of ice cream, respectively. I think you'd need a pretty large family or a VERY large appetite to take on their biggest cone!

Dairy Free and Gluten free battered fish!

Andrew with his single scoop

A 'double' scoop of ice cream!