Rotorua!

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I just had the best weekend ever! It was for her the high light of my week that i have been here. Saturday after Hopper got off work we drove to Rotorua which is about a 2 and a half hour drive from Auckland. So we arrive there at like 8 pm, and aside from the horrible smell of rotten eggs that the whole place smells of due to the fact that Rotorua is know as sulphur city because it has the most energetic thermal activity in the country, we were very excited to be there. So despite the smell its pretty cool to see that even in some areas other then the thermal parks you can see steam comming up from the ground. We Cheacked into are room and then went out to go for a drink. But the bar we went to would not let Hopper and Melissa in with there flip flops so we decided just to go pick up drinks and go back to are room. When we got to the liquror store they asked to see all of are ID's I had my pass port and Melissa and Hopper had there Alberta ID's, that they use everywhere and no one has a problem with it. well this guy would not accept those as ID's no matter what they said so I had to boot for them, haha it was the best thing every, we all had a good laugh. So we just went back to the room and had drinks and played cards.
The next morning we got up early so that we could get in as much as we could. So we headed off to Wai-O-Tapu thermal wonderland. Which was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It was full of collapsed craters,cold and boiling pools of mud, water and steaming fumaroles. Its really hard to explain but you will see when I post pictures. The thermal pools were bright with so many different colors. It was so interesting and beautiful to see. It tooks us about 2 hrs so walk around the whole park but it was amazing!
Then we headed off to the Agrodome where we got to watch a sheep show ( know I know that does not sound exciting but it really was!) There was 19 different breeds of sheep that we saw and learned about, a sheep shearing demo, a sheep auction, a demo of the dogs herding sheep and ducks and we got to feed lambs from a bottle. It was really fun. Sheep have alot more personality then they seem like they do, and after seeing soo many sheep on are way to Rotoru it was cool to learn about them since there is more sheep in New Zealand then people. The lambs were so cute and little, it was diffenetly a good way to end the show.
From there we went to the place where we got to go zorbing. Now its kinda hard to explain but zorbing a big plastic ball with small holes in it and you go in side this ball and either put water in it and then roll down a hill or roll without water.You roll down a 200 metre hill once. Now I know it sounds kind of point less and it is but it is so much fun! me and Melissa went in the zorb togther because it's more fun that way ( Melissa had done it before) and we had the water put in and it was super funny. You get trown around in this ball and you cant sit still even if you wanted to, you cant really see anything because of the water and you spend the whole trip laughing so its over before you now it. But it was super and and we got so wet, I'm so glad I got to do it, it was a very good experience!
We still had a few hours to kill before we had to go to the dinner we were going to at night so we decided to go to Lugeing which is like go carting in a way but it is not as much like a car and your going down hill. Its a gravity ride on a 3 wheeled cart. You go up on a gondola so you get a really nice view of the city. I was feeling a bit scared about going but once you get the hang of it its really easy. there is 3 different tracks you can go on so we got to go down 4 times which took us about an hour and a half. It was really fun, I was wishing so many people were there because I know everyone would love it and we would all have so much fun togther doing it. Again it will make more sence when you see pictures.
After a full busy day in the sun we were all very excited to finally be going for dinner. We had booked in to a cultural dinner. That had a hangi meal ( a traditional maori meal), a cultural performance, warriors in a canoe ( which was a canoe they had carved and we got to watch the paddle down a stream in it) and then a walk where we got to see glow worms and a sacred freshwater spring that had eels and fish in it. It was all so amazing to see and so worth the money that we spent on it. It was very cool to learn about the Maori traditions and see what it looked like in a Maori village. I really cant explain it but I was in complete awe with the evening. It would have been a shame to spend all this time in NZ and not have learned about the people. The food was amazing (and there was so much of it) we got to see all the traditional clothes and see different dances and songs. It all just blew my mind. I'm sitting here trying to find words to discribe it but I cant it was just that good. It put a perfect ending to are perfect day.
The weather was perfect, we got to do so much stuff and see so much stuff all in one day it was awsome! We were all very tired when we drove back to Auckland last night but Melissa and Hopper both had to workd this morning. But the weekend really showed me how Amazing and beautiful NZ really is. I'm now really looking forward to all thats to still come on this trip!

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