Squires Down Under - New Zealand Day 2

Day 9 - Rotorua - November 20, 2016

We had a lovely two bedroom condo with a small kitchenette in Rotorua, and it was nice to have the extra space.

I'm not entirely sure what's going on here.

Lots of Piano Tiles 2 playing goes on during our trips.  We don't let the girls use their kindles much at home, so this is a real perk on the trip.

Our first stop today was at church.  It sure is nice to be able to attend church wherever we go. We don't always take advantage, but this sacrament meeting was really nice.

Our next stop was at Skyline Rotorua.  They have these luge tracks that were a blast. They're similar to an alpine slide, except the pathway down the mountain is a wide concrete path so you can pass and race each other, as well as take different paths down the mountain.

First was the gondola ride up the mountain.

Rotorua is the adventure capital of New Zealand (at least of the North Island.  I hear Queenstown on the South Island is pretty awesome as well).  Rotovegas is one of their nicknames.

We grabbed our helmets and off we went.

We went down the beginner's track for our first ride.  Kate and Ada rode on their own, while Lyla rode with Alison.  Kate is pretty bold on a bike, but she was terrified of this and was like the little kid on the alpine slide that gets to the bottom with 10 people stacked up behind them.  Luckily, on this track people could pass her, but it was painful for me to follow behind her to keep an eye on her.  She was ready to be done after this.

I convinced her to ride along with me and she had some much more enjoyable rides.

Alison and Lyla. The system was pretty slick.  There sleds were loaded and unloaded from the chairlift automatically, so we didn't have to drag them around.

Alison and Kate.

We bought a 20 ride punch pass, and they didn't count the lap riders, so we had lots of rides. However, with the lap riders we couldn't go down the advanced course, so Alison and I did what any responsible parents would do.  We bought our girls ice cream and told them to sit there and wait for us.  We took a couple of rides on our own (and checked on them in-between).  It was super fun.

And beautiful!

It looks like we're about ready to play a live action game of Mario Kart.

This was definitely a highlight of the trip.  I would love to do it again sometime.

We grabbed lunch at the on-site cafe before heading to the Rainbow Springs Nature Park that was located right next door.

They had a water ride that poor Lyla wasn't tall enough to go on.  This poor short girl always gets the shaft.

The water ride took you through lots of bird enclosures and was a bit of a history lesson of New Zealand.

Kate.

There was a drop at the end, which is why Lyla wasn't allowed to join us.

After I went on it, Ada and Kate convinced Alison to go on it as well.

We spent a lot of time looking at the wildlife and birds.  They have kiwi here in a nocturnal enclosure, but we couldn't see any in the dim light, even though we tried a couple of times.

I made friends with this lovely cockatoo.  I was just amazed at how interactive they were. I would try for 10 minutes to get him to say hello, then as I was walking away he would shout hello at me.  A total tease.

We bought a couple of boomerangs in Australia and ever since Lyla would beg 3 or 4 times a day to go out and throw them.  We passed this park and it seemed like the perfect place.  We'll need to work on our throws because nobody could get them to return.

Long trips often require trips to the laundromat.  We had a bit of washing to do, so we washed our clothes while we tried to find some dinner.  I think we ate at Carl's Jr.  One of the most surprising things to me about New Zealand was the number of American fast food joints.  McDonald's, Carl's Jr., Subway, Wendy's, Burger King, KFC. I may as well have been in Cedar City, UT.

That night we returned to Rainbow Springs Nature Park to try and see their kiwi birds in the outdoor enclosure.  We were able to see a handful of them.  Never a very good view, because it was dark and they were sneaky birds (we had to always be very, very, quiet), but they were fun to see.

Tomorrow: Geysers & Hobbits!

Squires Down Under - New Zealand Day 1

Day 8 - Wellington to Rotorua, New Zealand - November 19, 2016

We arrived in Wellington New Zealand around midnight and made our way to our downtown hotel.

This hotel came with a breakfast buffet, which is always a plus.

This poor girl got a bit burned under her eyes at the beach yesterday.

We walked down into the city and found the old Wellington Cable Car.  It originally opened in the early 1900s (and is technically a funicular railway).  It's fairly short, but it beats climbing the hills that the city is set against.

There is a small Cable Car Museum at the top of the hill.  The original cable cars had seats on the outside that were sloped to match the incline.

The lovely view of Wellington.  Our next stop was to the top of the hill directly across from us.

Our next stop was the Mount Victoria Lookout.

We're looking back down at downtown Wellington.  The cable car is down there somewhere.

Wellington was a really pretty city.  Most of the costumes for the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films were created here by Weta Workshop.

This is the view from the other side of the lookout.  The airport is over this way. The main road from the airport to downtown goes through a tunnel rather than climb up and over this ridge.

Our next stop was to the Museum of New Zealand.  It was right down on the waterfront in Wellington.

Alison was enthralled with the big baby.

There was a big 7.8 magnitude earthquake a few days before we arrived in Wellington.  The epicenter was a little ways south of Wellington on the south island, but there was minor damage throughout Wellington.  A small portion of the museum was still closed for impact, but that was the only real impact to us from the earthquake.

It sounds like the effects and aftershocks of the earthquake are still ongoing: http://www.nature.com/news/ripple-effects-of-new-zealand-earthquake-continue-to-this-day-1.21876

Some outdoor gardens at the museum.

After the museum we grabbed some food from the cafe and hit the road.  We had a long drive ahead of us and we were getting on the road later than I had wanted.

We just couldn't believe the green dense growth.

This part of the island felt a lot like the Pacific Northwest.

Our next stop was Rivendell, or at least where the Rivendell scenes were filmed.

We crossed the suspension bridge in the pictures above, then took a short loop walk through the forest.

I love this picture.  So beautiful!

Lyla was the only elf that I found.

Once we left Rivendell we had a long drive to Rotorua in the north of the island.  We took a shortcut that was the narrowest, windiest road I have ever driven on.  But, it was beautiful.  There were lots and lots of signs about no vehicles over 20' long and to disregard your GPS and turn around if your in a larger vehicle.

We made it, but all of us (including me, and I never get car sick) were nauseous. We had to stop to get some fresh air.

Late night flights, long drives = sleepy girls.

This mountain is Ruapehu in Tongariro National Park.  Just on the other side of this mountain is Mordor. One does not simply walk in to Mordor, so we had to skip it.

We stopped and grabbed some pizza just before a little shop was closing, then continued on our drive.

Tomorrow: Church and luge racing!