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Published: September 12th 2006
We are now in NZ, after a delayed flight in Melbourne on Saturday with airport queues that were worse than when Heathrow has the scare a few weeks ago, we landed in Auckland in fog and lots of rain. Karen (dave's sister) landed from Brisbane at the same time so we met up and headed into the city for a night on the town.
We stayed the night in a hotel near the Sky tower, the tallest tower in the southern hemisphere they say. As it was late, dark and rainy we headed out for some food and drink followed by watching a very good girl band singing popular tunes. Lots of people dancing and having a good time. There is a mixture of old and young, mauri (NZ aboriginals), english and other nationalities.
In the morning we had a tour of Auckland and saw some of the main areas. Auckland seems very spread out and not a lot to see. The harbour is a lovely green colour (not seen that before) and it's full of yachts. Gather that sailing is a big New Zealand past time.
We headed headed south towards Rotorua driving through lots of cows,
farms, sheep, forest and green land. Drove past one of the towns where Hobbiton was built and filmed for Lord of the Rings. You can do a tour but there is not much there, so cannot see the point as it looked better on the films!
Arrived at Karen's house at around midday. She has a lovely house in the outskirts of Rotorua, it's wooden which reminds me a lot of Bolson where I grew up. The house was cold but soon enough it warmed up with a lovely log fire. Nice to be in a home rather than a hotel, and nice to spend some time with Dave's sister, something he hasn't been able to do for 25 years!
Since our arrival we have visited a couple of Thermal places where we have seen hot mud pools, geysers that erupted as high as 20 metres, bubbling streams, lagoons and lots of hot steam coming out of the ground. This is the most volcanic part of New Zealand and in certain parts of the town you can smell the sulphur but thankfully not out where Karen lives.
This evening we visited the hot pools at the Polynesian
Spa. We bathed in 4 different pools at different temperatures ranging from 38 to 42 degrees. One of them was a the edge of Lake Rotorua so who had a lovely view of lake and the steam rising from it at dusk.
Tomorrow we are off to the Waitomo Glowworms caves which should be very interesting as you only find these glow worms here in that part of NZ.
Until the next one.
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Jessica
non-member comment
Although I am not writting many comments, I am following your journey, and thinking of you both. I'm so glad your having a nice time. Te quiero muchisimo!. Jessica.