New Zealand-Day 1

This past week our family took a quick trip to New Zealand. We had some frequent flier miles that were about to expire in a few weeks, and the only places we could go for the low number of miles we had were New Zealand, Thailand, or Fiji (all just a couple hours from Sydney). Thailand and Fiji were booked out so we ended up in New Zealand.

I have to admit, out of the three New Zealand was my last pick. I mean seriously if you had to pick either a cold rainy island that is more expensive than Sydney or riding the elephants and getting massages for $5.00 (Thailand) which would you pick? Then I remembered the tickets were free and All THREE places are on my to-do list so I should just start ticking them away! We got away with a 5 day weekend due to the Melbourne Cup (big horse races and a public holiday in Victoria (where Stan is currently working with a client). Stan took Friday and Monday off and Tuesday was a public holiday. It worked out perfect and we got everything in that we wanted to see.

There were so many places and activities I decided to blog this trip day by day (which is unusual for me as I tend to sum things up in one big post). It should be noted that our 6 day trip was only spent in the north island of New Zealand. On our first day we flew into Auckland and then headed down south to Waitomo (In Maouri Wai = water and Tomo = cave, so it means where the water meets the cave. These caves are famous for glow worms and the cave tours are done on a big canoe. The tour lasted about an hour and when we finished going through the cave we came out onto the most beautiful patch of jungle I have ever seen. Everything was so tropical even though it was a colder climate, I was really amazed!

Grabbing ice cream before the boat ride. Unfortunately we couldn't take any picture of the glow worms so I had to snag some online

Above is the internet picture--and this does not even do it justice.

Mary and Stan just off of the boat!

After the Glowworm cave we ventured down to some more caverns just to see the stalactites and stalagmites. The girls were pretty fascinated and also creeped out by just how dark, wet and deep some of these caverns go.

Getting ready to get into more caves

I love this family shot!

Mary holding a piece of a stalagtite

After caving and lunch we got back in the car and headed east towards a town called Taupo. It has three active volcanoes and a beautiful city built on a lake, The main reason tourist stop here is because this town is famous for New Zealands best 1 day hike (which also ranks top 10 for best 1 day hikes in the world). The hike is 18 miles long and takes you past all three volcanoes, to an emerald lake, over snow and through jungle. It was where most of the movie 'Lord of The Rings 1' was filmed and Mount Doom (from the movie) is also one of the three volcanoes. We came to this town to sleep over and to do the hike the next day.

Once in Taupo, we spent the rest of the afternoon hiking to see some waterfalls and then eating yummy food at a cafe overlooking the lake.

Hiking the waterfall- the water was SO BLUE--note this is not a saturated picture, it was actually that BLUE! They yellow plant does help bring it out! :-)

See mount doom over the water? It is hard to see with the clouds but it is there.

And I thought this trash can was cool--beautiful Maori art work!

It should be noted that less than a week previously New Zealand had just won the Rugby World Cup. There were people, cars, and businesses wearing the All Blacks (name of their rugby team) colors and Jersey symbols--everywhere! There was so much energy and pride buzzing in the air...I almost tried to figure out how to play rugby! I am a huge fan of the NZ rugby team now...sorry Australia, you just never won my heart--GO KIWI'S! Anyway, while eating at this cafe I made a bet with Stan that every 10 cars that passed one would be waving the All Blacks flag...I got to 9 once, but usually it was about every three cars- seriously it was crazy!