Aotearoa - Land of the Long White Cloud

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We had a great visit to New Zealand, arriving on Dec 21st. We only had 9 days so we rented a car to check out the the North Island, and quickly discovered that 9 days was not nearly enough time to see even half of it. It is absolutely gorgeous there. It is strange, because it is very similar to California, yet very different at the same time. I almost felt as if I was back in time in the Jurassic period, halfway expecting a Taradactil to soar over my head as i hiked through large fern trees.

We spent the first 2 days checking out Auckland. We did a free city tour, went to the Auckland Museum, and checked out Queen Street. Then we rented a car so we could go out and explore some of the countryside. Adjusting to driving on the other side of the road was interesting (narrow lanes with no center divider). We walked from our hostel in Auckland over to the car rental place with all of our stuff in the pouring rain (about 10 blocks I think - at least it felt that way!). My bag was surprisingly not that bad to carry so I was glad about that. I drove us out of Auckland and we headed down to Waitomo to intertube through the glow worm caves. That was awesome! Thanks for the tip Dave and Tamra! I will post some pictures from that soon. We didn't know where we were going to stay when we got there, and following a sign that said "Pizza", we discovered a really nice YHA hostel just down the road from the caves.

The next day we headed for Manaia to join the Seths for Christmas. It took a long time for us to get down there, as we saw a sign for a waterfall and decided to go check it out. Unfortunatly, this took us probably a few extra hours than we intended. The waterfall was awesome though! The hike to the waterfall might have even been more awesome. We walked through a pasture of sheep and into a forest of ferns. we realized later, that this waterfall, however, was on "the forgotten highway" (mostly dirt roads separated by a few paved ones goign through small towns.) Once we finally reached the main roads, we headed for the seths house, however, we drove almost 2 towns past the place.

We had such a wonderful Christmas with them! (including a fun and comfy place to sleep, a great dinner, a game of driveway tennis, even Trivial Persuit and Scategories. After we left the Seth's house, we went to Rotorua and visited the Wai-O-Tapu (sacred waters) thermal pools, then went back to Auckland and stayed with some family friends of mine on Waiheke Island. The next day we went to Kelly Tarlton's an old sewage plant converted into an aquarium. Then we headed towards the airport and turned in our rental car. We had to get up at 3 to fly out to Sydney at 5:45.

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