Good morning, Christchurch airport! We said good bye to our Staria van and headed to the domestic terminal. Yeah...we all look a bit tired/crazy.
Look at this beautiful plane! By the way, crazy thing but we were allowed to carry water through security! And because of my amazing status match, I was able to get some food vouchers for the kids while Robert and I could go to a lounge for a quick bite.
It's been a while since we had to board the plane from the back entrance! Here are the kids, all settled and ready to fly to Rotorua!
Rotorua is located on the North Island, in the southeast area. It's a smallish town, with a big tourist appeal. Actually, I am wondering why it's appealing for tourists because it actually STINKS! Like literally--smells! hahaha
So much geothermal activity around there that the area smells like sulfur from hydrogen sulfide emissions (yes, I did have to look that up).
Oh wait! I must memorialize the fact that happened when we got to the Rotorua car rental place at the airport. I had only rented a large SUV for us (we had five carry on suitcases and one large one), but I decided to try my luck and asked them if they had a Staria by chance. And they DID!!! The kids laughed so hard as we told them after we walked away from the counter. It was the best as they absolutely loved how roomy it was!
So our first stop was a free park in the middle of Rotorua called Kuirau park. We wanted to see the geysers and this was the easiest place to do it.
These were not spewing water kind of geysers but hot boiling pools of water, steaming.
We walked around for a bit, still in awe that it was autumn in New Zealand with leaves on the ground. We could have driven a bit further out of the area to Waimangu or Wai O Tapu, but we didn't feel like paying extra to see more geysers.
But this area in the middle of the park was pretty cool. And smelly.
We stopped by to get some groceries at the store before heading to our next VRBO stop. I took a picture of a regular street in a regular neighborhood by a lake. The scenery was very different from the South Island--a lot fewer hills here.
We found the house we were staying at and took a quick walk to the lake, but the lake had so many little flies that were annoying us, that we didn't spend much time there. Just looked at the beautiful cloud formations as a storm was rolling passed us.
Robert with the dramatic scenery background.
Our house was pretty cool, I must say. It had a lot of room and comfortable beds for everyone. Katya had her own bedroom with a double bed! We had a beautiful kitchen and a view out to the lake. They had kayaks at the house, carpet in the garage and washer and dryer in that same garage. We parked our Staria outside of the garage, but inside the gate.
The highlight of our first day in Rotoru was going to a traditional Maori dinner and a show! We were SO excited for the most expensive event ever! (that is until we went to Hawaii and had to pay for a luau dinner and a show there-hahaha).
We did this dinner and a performance through the company called Mitai Maori. We first had a wonderful buffet dinner with an interactive questions and answers about the history of the Maori people. We sat in a large tent with at least a hundred other people, it was warm and it didn't matter that it was rainy.
Yeah...some of us went a bit crazy...
Desserts
For part of the time we had to follow the guides outside to see a show in the dark, with boats and all the traditional chants. It was cool! But the coolest part was indeed a wonderful performance of the Maori people. They told stories from their history and sang and danced. It was very memorable! And I think the whole experience was definitely worth the cost.
The following morning we woke up and made our way to the place where we were signed up for a ziplining tour. But that deserves its own post, so we'll come back to that later.
After the ziplining, we came home after lunch and because Katya was not feeling so great, we decided to take it easy. She and I stayed home while the boys found a Zorb adventure a few minutes away and had the best time of their lives!
They are crazy, and had a blast inside those Zorb balls rolling down the hill! We have videos to prove it too. With all sorts of sound effects-hahaha.
The weather was not so hot, so after the adventurous rolling down the hill, they enjoyed some hot tubbing.
After the boys got home to pick me up, we went to the Green and Blue Lakes located really close to Rotorua. We just wanted to continue seeing stuff in the area, although Katya was still not feeling great.
We walked around a bit on the trails, trying to use the last rays of sunlight. It was getting dark so we decided that we’d seen enough (technically not at all).
And then we stopped by a delicious Chinese place for dinner--it was one of the best meals in Rotorua for sure.
Rotorua seemed like a normal town where people live and tourists stop over as a spring board to the nearby daytrip destinations. It is unique, but not gorgeous or scenic, unless you drive outside of town for a bit--then you'll find curvy roads and some deep lakes. I think it was a smart and an efficient idea to fly from Christchurch to Rotorua in order for us to not backtrack and just keep driving through the island on the way to Auckland.
To Be Continued...
No comments:
Post a Comment