Our NZ Trip

So John and I both turned 30 this year. Horrifying in itself that our twenties have gone, but as an amazing 30th present to us, John's parents gave us a trip to NZ! We didn't have a huge amount of time, with John's work, and we were concerned about extended travelling with Alex at just over 18 months, so we went on a six day trip to the North Island in July. It was absolutely amazing, beautiful, and exhausting. Mostly due to Alex lack of willingness to sleep in any bed besides his cot. Which meant he shared a bed with John and me for the week, and we sang Rock a Bye Baby over and over until 10pm, after which John and I feel asleep while Alex was still up.

We still got to see quite a lot, obviously not as much as we would have without Alex. We spent most of the time based in Rotarua, then two nights in Auckland. Auckland was disappointing. Kind of a poor man's Sydney. Without the bridge. Or anything to see or do.

Rotarua, on the other hand, was a great pick. It is basically the centre of Maori culture, as well as basically built on geothermal land. We also went to the glow-worm caves from there, which we all loved. So amazing to sit in a boat silently floating in a pitch black cave with thousands of tiny glow-worms twinkling above you. Until they tell you it's actually the excrement of the insects that actually glows. But still...

So photos...

We got to Auckland fairly late on the first day. I'd actually had a job interview the day before down in Sydney, so we stayed the night at my aunt's house, and my cousin Lisa skipped uni to take up to the airport in the morning. Four hour flight was a great length for Alex's first flight. Took us a while to find the hire car and fit Alex's car seat in the torrential rain (would it be that much of a hassle for the hire company to do this for you??). Alex was pretty good on the plane. He'd had an ear infection the week before so we'd worried about his ears, but he was fine. Planes are "birrs", so he was quite fascinated by the airport. Drove the three hours-ish to Rotarua, checked in to the apartment, which, by the way, was fabulous for what we were paying. Probably because it was about 100 m from the thermal village and absolutely reeked as soon as you walked out the door.

Geothermal activity means sulfur. Sulfur smells like rotten eggs. Every time I walked out the door, it seemed to slap me across the face. John adjusted apparently. We did, however, refer to Rotarua as "where the Earth farts".

First day in Rotarua, we went to Lady Knox geyser. Twas quite the geyser.

Then to some mud pools.

We tried our first of several unsuccessful attempts at the local cuisine that night. Perhaps we were just unlucky, but we found the food in Rotarua was shite. To put it politely. The best meals we had were meals from the supermarket prepared in our apartment.

Next day, we started with a tour of Whakarewarewa, which was the thermal village up the street from our apartments. That was pretty amazing. It's a living thermal village, which means the native Maori inhabitants still live there. The tour guide didn't actually live in the village but was a descendant of the tribe. It was kind of weird to tour around people's actual houses, but they seemed to not mind. Most of them seemed to be involved in the "touristy" side of the village, performing in the cultural show (everyone loves a haka), and the like.

The tour guide explained the village such that the village is the "house" of the people living there, and their individual houses were their bedrooms. Cooking, washing, cleaning, eating, were all done in communal areas. The thermal waters were used for power, for their cooking, and for bathing. The waters were amazingly blue and clear. And 100 degrees Celsius. We ate our lunch there, eating some food that had been cooked in the thermal waters. (And a coke).

That afternoon, we thermalled it up again and went to the Polynesian Spa. That was awesome. We decided to splash out a bit, and paid for a private deluxe spa for half an hour, and it was divine. We had this amazing view over Lake Rotarua, and could swim in the nud if we wanted to. I hired swimmers (who packs swimmers for NZ in July), but did end up going in the nud. You only live once. Alex absolutely loved this as well, with the bath-warm water in the open air, swimming with Mummy & Daddy, and birds flying overhead. Probably our favourite activity of the trip.

Next day was Glow-Worm Cave day. We went through the Ruakuri cave, as well as the actual glow-worm  cave. Ruakuri cave had glow-worms also, but not quite like the other one. Ruakuri had amazing cave formations, and started Alex's favourite saying of the trip "Ooh, wow!". He wasn't overly keen on the caves to start with, when the first thing we did was go into a pitch black cavern, where the guide got everyone to shout at the top of their lungs. It took about ten minutes to get Alex to stop screaming. But after that, he was happy, checking out the stalactites and the like, in the Ergo on Daddy's back. Hard to get decent photos in the Ruakuri cave, and we weren't allowed to in the other glow-worm cave.

Next day was our favourite activity, although we had to say goodbye to Rotarua. We went on a tour of the Hobbiton site from Lord of the Rings, which is presently being rebuilt for the filming of the Hobbit. We had to sign confidentiality agreements to go on the tour, and am not supposed to publish photos, but I can show ones that don't give away movie secrets...

This was our favourite activity, mainly because we like the movies, and it was just so interesting seeing how and where they filmed Hobbiton scenes from LOTR, and also the rebuilding that was happening. And the countryside was storybook beautiful.

Our hotel room in Auckland was right near the airport, and while we were paying about as much per night as what we did for our gorgeous apartment in Rotarua, it was quite skanky. We actually had a nice meal in Auckland though, at a beautiful Thai restaurant. We missed our nice food. Alex enjoyed throwing rice all over their lovely restaurant, but luckily he's cute, so the waitresses didn't seem to mind.

Our last NZ day, we spent the day exploring Auckland. Actually we spent most of the time at the Sky Tower. Alex loved it up there, we had another great meal at the buffet restaurant up there, and it was raining, so our options were limited in any case.

Then we had nothing else to do. So we caught a ferry over to Devonport. It was cute. Kind of reminded me of Darby Street, except obviously over a larger space. And less cafes.

Had another nice dinner downstairs back at the Sky Tower, then back to the hotel to pack! Early flight home in the morning... Alex was great again. He got a little tetchy not far from the airport, but we could see boats in the water by then, so they kept him amused.

So it was an altogether lovely trip. I think we all had a great time, even though John and I came back more exhausted than ever. My lovely cousin Lisa picked us up at the airport in the morning again, probably voluntarily missing uni again. Slacker.

But shout out to John's parents for our amazing trip! We would never have bothered organising anything ourselves, even though we haven't been away since our honeymoon, except for the occasional weekend to Canberra. Not quite the same...