HE IS HERE!!!! Rotorua:Luging & Zorbing

JEFF is FINALLY in NEW ZEALAND!!!!!! After being in NZ for 83 days I finally have a piece of home here with me J

Jeff met up with his mom at San Fran airport before leaving!!

Jeff arrived after 23 hours of traveling on Wednesday morning at 6am I picked him up in our swanky rental car (Nissan) and we headed out of dark and rainy Auckland and headed towards Rotorua! I was just there about 3 weeks ago on a field trip (you can read aboutit here) and I thought it was a really interesting area so I decided that since We had 4 days in the North Island we would do a day there! After stopping a few times to take some pictures on my amazingly new camera we made it to Rotorua by 10 am.

beautiful waterfall on our drive

JEFF!!!

within minutes we were by sheep!!

We drove around and I showed Jeff the water front, the museum, and the different places I went on the field trip and then we decided to go on a nice walk/hike in the Redwood forest that is about a 5 minute trip from town. I love trees – especially big ones so walking through the forest was pretty awesome and the trees were magnificent! We decided to go on the 1.5 hour walk so we went up this hill and sat and looked at Lake Rotorua for a bit. It was really great just sitting and talking in person to Jeff!

tree hugger :)

Lake Rotorua

We then headed downtown, walked around a bit, checked into our hostel, had some lunch and just hung out! I knew I had to keep Jeff up at least till about 8 pm so he could adapt well to the 18+hours NZ is ahead.

Around 5 we headed to a place called Polynesian spa it is basically hot thermal pool with natural minerals from Rotorua. We sat in the pool and watched the sun set over Lake Rotorua. It was a really pretty sight and a nice relaxing evening. We then headed to The Brew and had some NZ beer and wine. It was about 7:30 when we called it a night J

thermal pool area

Thursday

We woke up pretty early (7am) and decided we needed some breakfast so we went to the grocery and stocked up on items for the next few days (I got my favorite avocados to spread on rice cakes) and headed back to the hostel to eat. After breakfast and checking out we picked up two of my friends from IU ( you already know them from the Coromandelblog post) Sam and Jonathan and headed to Skyline Gondola and Luging! The four of us headed up and couldn’t wait to luge! Jeff and I bought 3 trips so we were able to go down all three tracks! It was so much fun and the views were incredible!

We then had lunch and around 2pm headed down the mountain!

We said goodbye to Sam and Jonathan (you can see their blog post about Thursday here) and headed to ZORBING!!! If you don’t know what zorbing is google it. We were really hesitant to go because we didn’t want to get wet and then get out of the ball and be freezing (it’s around 45 degrees here) all day long but we decided to just do it any ways. We went down together in a giant hamster ball with warm water down a huge hill. Jeff and I tried to stay up and run in the ball as long as we could but that didn’t last long! We were rolling around and tumbling down a massive hill. It was hilarious and we laughed the whole time! It was one of my favorite things I have done so far J

We then headed towards Taupo (the biggest lake in NZ – actually the size of Singapore) but on the way we made a couple stops – first a Kerosene Creek. It’s a spot for locals but I knew about it from my field trip – we didn’t swim but I just wanted to show Jeff a warm creek!

After the creek we stopped at the mud pools to check it out – so awesome!

We then finally made it to Taupo!! I went here on a field trip of course back in March (check that post out here) and the area is BEAUTIFUL! There are 3 active volcanoes at the end of the lake – which we went to today. We walked around, checked into the hostel, watched the sun set over the lake and had a couple beers at a lakeside bar. We then went to a Indian restaurant where we were the only people there but had a nice meal before calling it a night!

Today (Friday)

We got up early in Taupo after a rough night sleep. We slept over a bar with the loud noise and people knocking on doors just didn't make for a pleasant nights sleep. I then tried to shower and there was no hot water :( (its fixed now). It was a rough morning but Jeff and I headed to the national park which was about an hours drive - we hiked the beginning of the Tongoriro Crossing (I did it in March) and did a short walk for late lunch as well. It was a great day in the park seeing the hissing volcanos and just touring around. We came back and had some NZ beer and pizza for dinner and now were headed to bed! Auckland and the All Blacks Rugby game tomorrow evening!!!