From the beginning

April 18 - We arrived in Auckland early Sunday morning. We toured around the city for a few hours and took in the sights of the City of Sails. It earned this nickname because it has more sailboats than any other in the world. Since we had flown overnight, we had a short day and drove on to Hamilton to spend the night.

April 19 - Our group started off the day with an introduction by Tour Director and Guide, Ross Macmillian with Farm to Farm Tours. He gave an overview of agriculture in New Zealand. After some brief discussion we boarded the bus for our first visit.

We were off to a kiwi fruit orchard owned by Tim Oliver. Tim's organic kiwi farm is 10.8 ha of green kiwi and 1.8 ha of Zespri Gold kiwi. It was neat to see the fruit still waiting to be harvested. Gold kiwi vines are sensitive to cold and unfortunately, they lost their entire 2010 crop due to a severe frost in September 2009. Their green kiwi crop is doing well and should be harvested by the time we return to the States.

Our next stop was to Benlee Dairy Farm. Benlee is owned by David & Raewyn Bennett. They have 1,300 dairy cows on their mostly pasture-based farm, but unlike most New Zealand dairies - they also supplement with maize silage grown on their property. Benlee won the high input category in 2007 Dairy Business of the Year Awards.

After wrapping up the visit to the dairy, we took in the Te Puia thermal area to view the boiling mud pools, steaming lakes and geysers. We had a dinner at a traditional Maori theater and were treated to signing, dancing and war poses. Several of our group had the opportunity to try their dancing skills.