So Carla and I decided that we needed to take advantage of the 2 weeks I had off of work for Christmas. So we rented a car and drove the entire North Island of New Zealand! It was pretty incredible, we saw and experienced SO much new stuff!
So the first step was renting a car. We had never rented a car before so that in itself was a bit of a challenge, but we figured it out! We got to the car rental place Monday morning ready to pick up our car and our handy GPS unit. Oh wait... thats right, they were all out of GPS units! Even though the day before we had called twice just to make sure we would have one. Well, what are you going to do. We are proud to say that we made the entire trip the old school way... with a MAP!! So we had our car and our map... then all we had to do was figure out how to drive on the other side of the road! We sat in the parking lot for probably 15 minutes just pumping ourselves up to have the courage to go.
And were off!
Driving on the other side of the road was quite an experience! Everytime a car drove past us I think I stopped breathing... so overall I dont think I was breathing the whole way to our first stop, Rotorua. But we made the 3 hour trip nice and safe and we got to our hotel.
We went to check in and the lady behind the counter was the sweetest Kiwi woman we have met! And then something happened that we had never experenced before. We were given our room key... and a carton of milk. Hmmm... you might be asking why? Yeah, so were we. I almost didnt take the milk until she insisted that we take it. When I said "the milk is for us?" She said, "Of course, for your cup o' tea" hahaha our cup of tea!
This place was so cute and the funniest part of the entire hotel was hot tiny the bathroom sink was. I mean look at it! Look at Carla putting her hands in the teeny tiny sink.
So then we decided to take a look around Rotorua! New Zealand is such a beautiful country, and we will have more pictures of the drive in later posts. But for now, here is the infamous sheep of New Zealand! If you havent heard of the NZ sheep, this country has 10 times as many sheep as it has people. haha so here they are :)
The next stop was something that I have been wanting to do even before me moved to this country. ZORBING!!! Now for those who dont know what that is, its a Kiwi invention where you basically roll down a hill in a giant inflatable ball. It is SOOO much fun!!!! Here is a picture of people rolling down the hill in the Zorb balls.
So we get up to the top of the hill and the gentleman up top says, "ok, so what youre going to do is take a headfirst dive into the ball" So you dive through this little hole into the inside of the ball. Carla and I dive in to the same ball then the man outside starts filling up the ball with water! So we are already soaked and the ball is half full of water. Then we stand up, wait for the guys signal, then you just starts pushing forward. We get to the edge of the hill, and it is actually very steep! Then down we go!!! Once the ball starts rolling, the two of us just start flopping around, water going EVERYWHERE! You roll down that hill REALLY fast!!! We got to the bottom all wet and disoriented and all we wanted to do was go again! Unfortunately we werent able to go again, just because we had some other things we wanted to do, but man that was awesome! Brilliant even! Here is us at the bottom of the hill with the Zorb ball behind us.
After that we had lunch a a place called The Fat Dog! haha yeah, funny name, but fantastic food. And I think the best part of it was the way they give you a number. Instead of giving you a number for your order, they give you some random item. So we ate lunch with a plastic pink duck.
We didnt realize it, but we were right down the road from Lake Rotorua. So we went there and checked it out.
So all over New Zealand you will hear this clicking noise up in the trees. And it is loud! We never knew what it was until we walked past a light pole and saw this giant bug! Its like a cricket type thing, but huge! And there it was, clicking away.
And here is Carla driving on the other side of the road! She was such a brave wife with trying that out! I was so proud of her! And she did really well! Her only problem was drifting to side of the lane hahaha she didnt like having the oncoming traffic so close to her. Believe it or not, my biggest problem was speeding. Back in the States Im known as a slow driver. haha But I blame it on the fact that I was driving in Kmph instead of Mph... so yeah, not my fault :)
Rotorua is famous for being a place with an abundace of thermal hot springs. There are these steaming pits everywhere! And they are.... really smelly! Horrible! The town smells like old farts. hahaha But we had to experience Rotorua and stop on the side of the road and check out this pits. They are amazing! Its just a huge hole of bubbling mud! They are extremely hot, we've heard 100 C wich i think is around 200 F! Thats why the city builds these fences around them, to help keep people from falling in.
Yeah, they stink!
So the last thing we did in Rotorua was going to this popular hot springs spa called The Polynesian Spa. We were able to book a private pool, which of course meant that we were alone, and we got a "deluxe" one, which meant that it was overlooking Lake Rotorua, which ended up being really relaxing and fun to do. This didnt smell as bad as we thought it would, but it was still up there. :)
The next stop was something that I have been wanting to do even before me moved to this country. ZORBING!!! Now for those who dont know what that is, its a Kiwi invention where you basically roll down a hill in a giant inflatable ball. It is SOOO much fun!!!! Here is a picture of people rolling down the hill in the Zorb balls.
So we get up to the top of the hill and the gentleman up top says, "ok, so what youre going to do is take a headfirst dive into the ball" So you dive through this little hole into the inside of the ball. Carla and I dive in to the same ball then the man outside starts filling up the ball with water! So we are already soaked and the ball is half full of water. Then we stand up, wait for the guys signal, then you just starts pushing forward. We get to the edge of the hill, and it is actually very steep! Then down we go!!! Once the ball starts rolling, the two of us just start flopping around, water going EVERYWHERE! You roll down that hill REALLY fast!!! We got to the bottom all wet and disoriented and all we wanted to do was go again! Unfortunately we werent able to go again, just because we had some other things we wanted to do, but man that was awesome! Brilliant even! Here is us at the bottom of the hill with the Zorb ball behind us.
After that we had lunch a a place called The Fat Dog! haha yeah, funny name, but fantastic food. And I think the best part of it was the way they give you a number. Instead of giving you a number for your order, they give you some random item. So we ate lunch with a plastic pink duck.
We didnt realize it, but we were right down the road from Lake Rotorua. So we went there and checked it out.
So all over New Zealand you will hear this clicking noise up in the trees. And it is loud! We never knew what it was until we walked past a light pole and saw this giant bug! Its like a cricket type thing, but huge! And there it was, clicking away.
And here is Carla driving on the other side of the road! She was such a brave wife with trying that out! I was so proud of her! And she did really well! Her only problem was drifting to side of the lane hahaha she didnt like having the oncoming traffic so close to her. Believe it or not, my biggest problem was speeding. Back in the States Im known as a slow driver. haha But I blame it on the fact that I was driving in Kmph instead of Mph... so yeah, not my fault :)
Rotorua is famous for being a place with an abundace of thermal hot springs. There are these steaming pits everywhere! And they are.... really smelly! Horrible! The town smells like old farts. hahaha But we had to experience Rotorua and stop on the side of the road and check out this pits. They are amazing! Its just a huge hole of bubbling mud! They are extremely hot, we've heard 100 C wich i think is around 200 F! Thats why the city builds these fences around them, to help keep people from falling in.
Yeah, they stink!
So the last thing we did in Rotorua was going to this popular hot springs spa called The Polynesian Spa. We were able to book a private pool, which of course meant that we were alone, and we got a "deluxe" one, which meant that it was overlooking Lake Rotorua, which ended up being really relaxing and fun to do. This didnt smell as bad as we thought it would, but it was still up there. :)
After the spa, we headed back to the hotel and relaxed and went to bed early. We woke up the next morning at 5:30, got ready and headed out of Rotorua for Wellington. We absolutely LOVED Rotorua, and were bummed that we only spent an afternoon there, so we definitely plan on going back.
We will do another post on Wellington, so check in soon for more!
Matt and Carla
Carla's facial expression says it all when you were at the steaming pits...maybe that's where the expression "it's the pits" comes from. Glad you are having the time and fun exploring. Thanks for sharing
ReplyDeleteHAHAHHAHA I love the milk comment... all of these things I forget that are "uniquely kiwi" I guess the ability to "have a cuppa" is just as important as the room key :)
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