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Wow, how is this only the third day! We have done so much. Yesterday we walked around the Lake Taupo area. Some of those fisherman stumbling INTO the bar at 7pm looked a little scary, but it was cool to see a bit more night life than what we had in Rotorua. Actually, while we were sitting in a restaurant a group of about 20 women clothed in pink boas and blaring on whistles marched into the restaurant in a congo line and started shouting and rolling on the floor on cue. One of them ran up to Jack and asked, "Scrambled or poached?" to which Jack replied "scrambled...". And then they were gone. Out the door, and the restaurant went back to normal, aside from one man's reaction: "Bloody hell"
We slept in our van in the back of a grocery store parking lot. Enough said.
This morning we walked around the lake down by the thermal springs. Hot water is literally bubbling up through the ground. Part of the lake is just steaming; it's crazy. Even the rocks and the ground are hot from whatever is coming up below. It's the same as the boiling mud pools we saw yesterday. This whole area in the north island is covered with volcanos.
We took our trip up north to Mount Maunganui to stay at our time share. Of course it was a beautiful drive, and we got to stop and eat kiwi and sandwiches on the side of the highway. They not only have the regular green kiwi but their own gold kiwi which is sweeter.
The Sun Pacific Villa time share is amazing! We are on the top floor and have a balcony overlooking the pacific. I think we are going to ride some bikes into town tomorrow to see what we can do up on the Mount. One week in paradise!
To answer some questions: the green rental van attracts attention, but the good thing is we never lose it! I'm glad to hear that Matt looks great. I'm so happy he gets to be home. I think we are finally on their time schedule, even though we can't stay awake later than 10:00pm. Jack's knee is doing great, in case anyone was worried. Our debit cards work great, we are able to withdraw and charge just fine. We might have a deal on an apartment in Auckland! We'll keep you updated. Driving on the wrong side of the road has been fun. When you are the passenger, you still feel like you should have a steering wheel, though. We had to bum a ride from the rental car place on the first day to a motel near by because our debit cards wouldn’t accept the full amount of the rental. I had to steal a phone from behind the counter at this gross little motel to call our bank in the states to change our daily limits and got screamed at by the motel owner’s wife. Jack paid her $7 to shut up and we made it back to the rental place and out of Auckland. That’s when we got rear-ended, but no damage done. It was funny after 30 hours in airplanes and airports. The picture of Jack with an angry face is because we were in the LgAy airport for 4 hours. We had a bad experience there once… anyone remember the homeless lady and the bench?
Well, we love you and will have internet access all week!
Cheers
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Matt
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My bench!
It's mine. Keep your hands off or else!