13 August 2011

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The day Neil arrives!

We pack up early and leave Piahia around 6.45am. Virtually without stopping except for diesel, we arrive at the airport around 3.5 hours later to pick up Neil. He was in pretty good shape despite his long journey.

We then carried on to Rotorua, another 3 hours away from Auckland. We were amazed with the steam just coming out of the ground everywhere and the parks where areas were fenced off for the larger holes/lakes. In Rotorua we also visited a small village literally built on top of the hot pool and saw a lady cooking sweetcorn in the hot water!

We then went on to Wai-O-Tapu and whilst we had missed the daily geyser blowing at 10.15 the walk around the large site was amazing. The colours were hugely varied, particularly the bright green pool at the end.

Lake Taupo was only 50 miles away and we arrived there just as it was getting dark. The lake was much larger than I expected. The apartments were all excellent, 2 with wonderful views over the lake and the other next door to the pool. From the balcony you could see at the other end of the lake a large mountain, which had snow on the top of it.

Stephanie and Tux went out and checked the restaurants. We decided on Dixie Browns which was no 2 on Trip Adviser. The portions were massive! Neil and Tux had a numbers of large spare ribs and a huge steak! Michael had an even larger pile of just ribs.

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