TE PUIA, The Geyser Park
We enjoyed a couple of hours of pure leisure this morning. Ron was considering going golfing but changed his mind due to lack of interest. So we lounged around the condo and took care of a few details. I found an email that AT&T sent to me, saying I had used more than $100 in DATA transfer. As I have not been on my phone except to send 7 text messages, which I had paid for before we left country, and to make two phone calls, I was shocked! I had locked out all push notifications entirely from every APP listed and was very careful to not incur Data transfer (because I know how expensive it can be). I didn't want any surprises? So when I found this email, I called the attached phone number and spoke to a soft voice on the other end. She told me I had used a lot of data. I asked how that could be because I don't use my phone at all? She walked me through how to shut down my data use. Apparently my Data Roaming was still "on". I asked her how much was my bill thus far. She said $297. As she wasn't interested in giving me a break, I choked it down and let it go. Can't do much from NZ anyway. Travelers beware!!
After lunch at the Mall Food Court where Ron and I put away more fried chicken, we drove over to TE PUIA, a Geyser Park with bubbling pools of mud, steam vents, geysers that blast upwards of 30 to 40 feet of steaming, boiling water more than 20 times a day. The mud pots were not so impressive because of the drought NZ has had. The January rains did not come as expected.
We went into the Kiwi exhibit. The nocturnal birds have been fooled into thinking daytime is night time due to the false lighting. Would that be called "Bird Programming"? It was still pretty dark inside the exhibit. I did manage to see one of the birds as it ran around in and out of dimly lit areas. It looked like a brown Guinea to me. I couldn't see it's 5" long beak. The others could see it better than me.
After we hit the gift shop and they took us for a few bucks, we picked up a few essentials at the local grocery market and came home. Debby fixed Tacos for dinner. Afterwards, we tossed some chairs over the fence and went down next to Rotorua Lake to watch the sun go down. It was beautiful with the Ducks and Black Swans swimming in the water.
(Note to Self: What ELSE do Ducks swim in??)
Today was a beautiful day with temperatures in the upper 70's.
I could get used to this!!
Friday, March 8, 2013
Thursday, March 7, 2013
WAITOMO, NZ
GLOW WORM CAVE
Today we drove more than 350 Km on our sightseeing excursion to take a peek at the HOBBITON MOVIE location near Matamata, NZ, where some of "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" was filmed. It was a long drive to get there! We were also too cheap to pay the $75 entrance fee into the tour area for a 30 minute tour of the movie set. Instead, we just looked around the Shire and had a picnic in the front yard. I was disappointed that we didn't see a single walking tree! We should have because we were smack dab in the middle of their hobbi-tat! What we DID see was, what appeared to be, a dead Possum on the road. It just proves New Zealand Possums are no smarter than OUR Possums!
From there we drove out to the Glow Worm Cave near Waitomo and took a tour of the giant underground cave.
(Note to self: ALL CAVES are underground).
My Codger rate was $25 while my young bride cost me $43. The cave floor has been lined with pavers and stairs. It wasn't too well lit but we managed to find our way. The Glow Worm portion of the cave was seen from a boat as we rode along. The cave ceiling was covered with the tiny glowing creatures. I wasn't able to see them very well but I think the others enjoyed them. Kind of looked like stars in the night sky. They would not allow photography of ANY kind so we bought a post card. I took a picture of a picture and will just pretend its mine. Is that Plagiarism? (Maybe for you, but for Codgers, it's called "fun"!).
We made our way back to Rotorua and stopped by the downtown Farmers Market to get a bite to eat. It was nothing to sneeze at and we soon returned to our condo just after sunset. I ate what appeared to be bits of chicken on skewers and chicken fried rice. if it wasn't, please don't tell me any different! The smell of Sulphur was especially strong around Rotorua this evening. The myriad of boiling mud bogs and sulphur ponds are plentiful around here! I think we're so far "down under" that Hell must be very close! We need to watch our "P's and Q's" very closely!
Today we drove more than 350 Km on our sightseeing excursion to take a peek at the HOBBITON MOVIE location near Matamata, NZ, where some of "The Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" was filmed. It was a long drive to get there! We were also too cheap to pay the $75 entrance fee into the tour area for a 30 minute tour of the movie set. Instead, we just looked around the Shire and had a picnic in the front yard. I was disappointed that we didn't see a single walking tree! We should have because we were smack dab in the middle of their hobbi-tat! What we DID see was, what appeared to be, a dead Possum on the road. It just proves New Zealand Possums are no smarter than OUR Possums!
From there we drove out to the Glow Worm Cave near Waitomo and took a tour of the giant underground cave.
(Note to self: ALL CAVES are underground).
My Codger rate was $25 while my young bride cost me $43. The cave floor has been lined with pavers and stairs. It wasn't too well lit but we managed to find our way. The Glow Worm portion of the cave was seen from a boat as we rode along. The cave ceiling was covered with the tiny glowing creatures. I wasn't able to see them very well but I think the others enjoyed them. Kind of looked like stars in the night sky. They would not allow photography of ANY kind so we bought a post card. I took a picture of a picture and will just pretend its mine. Is that Plagiarism? (Maybe for you, but for Codgers, it's called "fun"!).
We made our way back to Rotorua and stopped by the downtown Farmers Market to get a bite to eat. It was nothing to sneeze at and we soon returned to our condo just after sunset. I ate what appeared to be bits of chicken on skewers and chicken fried rice. if it wasn't, please don't tell me any different! The smell of Sulphur was especially strong around Rotorua this evening. The myriad of boiling mud bogs and sulphur ponds are plentiful around here! I think we're so far "down under" that Hell must be very close! We need to watch our "P's and Q's" very closely!
Wednesday, March 6, 2013
ROTORUA, NEW ZEALAND
ROTORUA, NZ
We arrived at Rotorua International Airport aboard a shaky twin engine prop piloted by a blue eyed, blonde sweetie that looked young enough to still be in high school. The flight line attendants rolled up a set of stairs for us to exit from the door abruptly behind the pilot. When we boarded in Auckland, there was no such thing as a security check, although they took our boarding passes. There was no metal detector, nude photo scanner, frisking or profiling. There was no walkway ramp that dumped you into the side door of this baby plane. Instead, we walked down a flight of stairs directly onto the Tarmac and out to the waiting plane. The stairway to the side plane door was so close to the Prop that I could have reached out and touched it! Fortunately, the engines were shut down at the time!
Rotorua International is a tiny airport, totally uncrowded with only a few steps from the Tarmac to the street. Debby made her way over to waiting Taxis and shuttles only to find out the cost to our resort, about 9 km away, would cost $35 instead of the $20 the resort info told us. So we bit.
Upon arrival we discovered the lakeside resort was a little different than we anticipated. There was no resort shuttle for us to use; we were $35 away from the airport, 4-5 km from the nearest tiny store, and $60 away from downtown Rotorua, and $60 more back to our Worldmark Resort. As we began to do the math to cover the next 5 days of running around, not to mention, SIGHTSEEING, we decided to rent a car and take our chances driving on the opposite side of the road. We got hold of Thrifty Car Rental and struck a deal on a compact Hyundai.
The next morning a young lady arrived at our door promptly at 0900 to pick us up and take us to the airport. Ron and I signed up as designated drivers and paid our $400 for 5 days' rental. Ron took the wheel and got us home, where we picked up a couple of familiar girls and drove into Rotorua to see the sights.
Rotorua is a quaint little town with many empty shops about. As a local coffee and sandwich shop keeper told us, quite a few businesses have moved their business down the way to a local Mall. We did manage to go to that Mall and check it out. It is quite large and contains a food court that we promptly explored and stuffed our faces!
We visited a local park. It was not your normal city park by any means. This area abounds in geothermal activity, especially this park! We thoroughly enjoyed walking about and seeing the bubbling mud bogs and steaming ponds, not to mention the sharp odor of sulphur in the air! Rotorua is a hotbed of geothermal heat, belching steam, mud and sulphur all over the place! A couple of businesses like the Polynesian Spa have harness this amazing energy and created bath houses with varying temperatures of bathing pools, both public and private, where singles, couples and families can relax in a strong mineral bath where stress, pain and anxiety melts away like summer snow. We didn't have time to try it out as we needed to head over to do some grocery shopping before our evening excursion in a couple of hours.
Our evenings event was a trip to the MITAI MAORI VILLAGE. For $100/each we were treated to a great dinner of hot coal baked Lamb, Chicken, potatoes and many other side dishes. The main event was a Maori Cultural show put on by young Maori's working to keep the the old culture alive while living in the modern world. Our traveling companions, well....... RON in particular, was singled out of the crowd of more than 250 people to be our Chief and represent us before the great Maori Chief. It included a speech on behalf of his tribe to the Maori Chief that we come in peace and appreciate his hospitality, along with the traditional "nose touching" greeting of friendship. It was a lot of fun and Nancy and I have home videos as proof! Hopefully we will be able to sell these videos back to Chief Ron to keep them off of Face Book or You Tube! If not, you may get to see them!
We also took a walk Into the night to visit the habitat of the amazing Glow Worms along he creek. I guess they were amazing to see. I don't see very well anymore so I couldn't tell how wonderful they were.
We were dropped off back at the condo by our retired driver, who talked and sang songs all the way back, for our listening pleasure.
It's all good!
We arrived at Rotorua International Airport aboard a shaky twin engine prop piloted by a blue eyed, blonde sweetie that looked young enough to still be in high school. The flight line attendants rolled up a set of stairs for us to exit from the door abruptly behind the pilot. When we boarded in Auckland, there was no such thing as a security check, although they took our boarding passes. There was no metal detector, nude photo scanner, frisking or profiling. There was no walkway ramp that dumped you into the side door of this baby plane. Instead, we walked down a flight of stairs directly onto the Tarmac and out to the waiting plane. The stairway to the side plane door was so close to the Prop that I could have reached out and touched it! Fortunately, the engines were shut down at the time!
Rotorua International is a tiny airport, totally uncrowded with only a few steps from the Tarmac to the street. Debby made her way over to waiting Taxis and shuttles only to find out the cost to our resort, about 9 km away, would cost $35 instead of the $20 the resort info told us. So we bit.
Upon arrival we discovered the lakeside resort was a little different than we anticipated. There was no resort shuttle for us to use; we were $35 away from the airport, 4-5 km from the nearest tiny store, and $60 away from downtown Rotorua, and $60 more back to our Worldmark Resort. As we began to do the math to cover the next 5 days of running around, not to mention, SIGHTSEEING, we decided to rent a car and take our chances driving on the opposite side of the road. We got hold of Thrifty Car Rental and struck a deal on a compact Hyundai.
The next morning a young lady arrived at our door promptly at 0900 to pick us up and take us to the airport. Ron and I signed up as designated drivers and paid our $400 for 5 days' rental. Ron took the wheel and got us home, where we picked up a couple of familiar girls and drove into Rotorua to see the sights.
Rotorua is a quaint little town with many empty shops about. As a local coffee and sandwich shop keeper told us, quite a few businesses have moved their business down the way to a local Mall. We did manage to go to that Mall and check it out. It is quite large and contains a food court that we promptly explored and stuffed our faces!
We visited a local park. It was not your normal city park by any means. This area abounds in geothermal activity, especially this park! We thoroughly enjoyed walking about and seeing the bubbling mud bogs and steaming ponds, not to mention the sharp odor of sulphur in the air! Rotorua is a hotbed of geothermal heat, belching steam, mud and sulphur all over the place! A couple of businesses like the Polynesian Spa have harness this amazing energy and created bath houses with varying temperatures of bathing pools, both public and private, where singles, couples and families can relax in a strong mineral bath where stress, pain and anxiety melts away like summer snow. We didn't have time to try it out as we needed to head over to do some grocery shopping before our evening excursion in a couple of hours.
Our evenings event was a trip to the MITAI MAORI VILLAGE. For $100/each we were treated to a great dinner of hot coal baked Lamb, Chicken, potatoes and many other side dishes. The main event was a Maori Cultural show put on by young Maori's working to keep the the old culture alive while living in the modern world. Our traveling companions, well....... RON in particular, was singled out of the crowd of more than 250 people to be our Chief and represent us before the great Maori Chief. It included a speech on behalf of his tribe to the Maori Chief that we come in peace and appreciate his hospitality, along with the traditional "nose touching" greeting of friendship. It was a lot of fun and Nancy and I have home videos as proof! Hopefully we will be able to sell these videos back to Chief Ron to keep them off of Face Book or You Tube! If not, you may get to see them!
We also took a walk Into the night to visit the habitat of the amazing Glow Worms along he creek. I guess they were amazing to see. I don't see very well anymore so I couldn't tell how wonderful they were.
We were dropped off back at the condo by our retired driver, who talked and sang songs all the way back, for our listening pleasure.
It's all good!
Monday, March 4, 2013
AUCKLAND, NZ
AUCKLAND, NZ
Our flight to New Zealand was about 13 hours of flying in the dark. Sitting in those hard seats for that long is not fun! I wanted a sleeping berth but I guess those cost extra! My video screen was so dark I couldn't see the movies. Already dreading the trip back! Hours of dozing off and waking up. Bathroom trips from drinking lots of water. Disturbed, bumped and jolted by sleepy passengers frying to make their way to the bathroom, enabled the sleeplessness problem. But I can't complain about the Economy Airfare we got for $1200, when we had seen those fares earlier climb to over $3200/ea. I'm sure th sleeping berths would have been over $4500/ea.
We landed in Auckland a out an hour late. A lot of people missed their connecting flights, but not us! We were scheduled to catch our flight to ROTORUA at 12:30, which we did!
Customs was easy enough. We had brought foodstuff for snacks and cooking in our condo and had to declare it on the provided customs declaration form, or face a $400 fine for trying to sneak in contraband food! The customs Official looked over our list and wanted to see some of them. He confiscated a pound of dry Pinto Beans that we had earmarked for a batch of homemade chili. The remaining stuff was okay.
We took our luggage over to the Domestic Flights area and checked it on to Rotorua. We boarded our small plane a couple of hours later. Our small commuter was a twin Prop that would seat 20 souls on board. About 7 seats were empty. There was a single seat on each side of the aisle. It looked very strange after the wide bodied plane we came to Auckland!
We scoped out the tiny airport and then made our way outside to bargain with a few Taxi's. we picked one and headed to the Worldmark Resort, Checked in and found our 3-bedroom condo. It's not as nice as the American condos, but......
"It'll do, Pig....It'll do."
Our flight to New Zealand was about 13 hours of flying in the dark. Sitting in those hard seats for that long is not fun! I wanted a sleeping berth but I guess those cost extra! My video screen was so dark I couldn't see the movies. Already dreading the trip back! Hours of dozing off and waking up. Bathroom trips from drinking lots of water. Disturbed, bumped and jolted by sleepy passengers frying to make their way to the bathroom, enabled the sleeplessness problem. But I can't complain about the Economy Airfare we got for $1200, when we had seen those fares earlier climb to over $3200/ea. I'm sure th sleeping berths would have been over $4500/ea.
We landed in Auckland a out an hour late. A lot of people missed their connecting flights, but not us! We were scheduled to catch our flight to ROTORUA at 12:30, which we did!
Customs was easy enough. We had brought foodstuff for snacks and cooking in our condo and had to declare it on the provided customs declaration form, or face a $400 fine for trying to sneak in contraband food! The customs Official looked over our list and wanted to see some of them. He confiscated a pound of dry Pinto Beans that we had earmarked for a batch of homemade chili. The remaining stuff was okay.
We took our luggage over to the Domestic Flights area and checked it on to Rotorua. We boarded our small plane a couple of hours later. Our small commuter was a twin Prop that would seat 20 souls on board. About 7 seats were empty. There was a single seat on each side of the aisle. It looked very strange after the wide bodied plane we came to Auckland!
We scoped out the tiny airport and then made our way outside to bargain with a few Taxi's. we picked one and headed to the Worldmark Resort, Checked in and found our 3-bedroom condo. It's not as nice as the American condos, but......
"It'll do, Pig....It'll do."
Thursday, February 28, 2013
WYLIE, TX
WYLIE, TEXAS
After spending the night in Tyler, Texas, home of Josha Moss, we headed to Cracker Barrel in Lindale. Debby thought this might be our last CB until we return from New Zealand. That's probably true unless we find one in WANAKA, NZ. You never know......
We continued driving north and made it to our friends' house in Wylie, where we will spend a couple of days before we fly out to LAX Saturday to catch our flight to New Zealand on Sunday.
After spending the night in Tyler, Texas, home of Josha Moss, we headed to Cracker Barrel in Lindale. Debby thought this might be our last CB until we return from New Zealand. That's probably true unless we find one in WANAKA, NZ. You never know......
We continued driving north and made it to our friends' house in Wylie, where we will spend a couple of days before we fly out to LAX Saturday to catch our flight to New Zealand on Sunday.
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
GALVESTON
Galveston, TX
We decided to take a drive over to MOODY GARDENS and check out the Aquarium. To get into things like this is very easy to do during "off season" months and weekdays during school hours! Normal people are either working, in school, or NOT tourists! But Deb and I are not normal.
There was no ticket line at all. Not only that but Tuesday is "Senior Day", where a senior pass costs only $5 per attraction. So we bought tickets for the Aquarium and the Rain Forest. We saved $48. That's almost the same cost as our beach front motel. It's all good!
We have reservations to eat at Gaido's Restaurant at 5:45. It's supposed to be a great place to eat. We've heard from a reliable source that Bill Wilkins eats here often!
(UPDATE): we did have dinner at Gaido's and it was very good!
It's Wednesday morning. We are heading towards Dallas via Port Arthur on the Ferry. Ts a beautiful sunny morning!
We decided to take a drive over to MOODY GARDENS and check out the Aquarium. To get into things like this is very easy to do during "off season" months and weekdays during school hours! Normal people are either working, in school, or NOT tourists! But Deb and I are not normal.
There was no ticket line at all. Not only that but Tuesday is "Senior Day", where a senior pass costs only $5 per attraction. So we bought tickets for the Aquarium and the Rain Forest. We saved $48. That's almost the same cost as our beach front motel. It's all good!
We have reservations to eat at Gaido's Restaurant at 5:45. It's supposed to be a great place to eat. We've heard from a reliable source that Bill Wilkins eats here often!
(UPDATE): we did have dinner at Gaido's and it was very good!
It's Wednesday morning. We are heading towards Dallas via Port Arthur on the Ferry. Ts a beautiful sunny morning!
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
GALVESTON, TEXAS
GALVESTON, TX
We left Spring, TX this morning about 8:45 after saying goodbye to our good friends Debbie and Bill Wilkins.....also their daughters, Megan and Jennie and their two Chinese exchange high schoolers, Jill and Xiaone! Oh, yes, and grandson, Max! What a great visit we had! We hated to leave!
We drove through downtown Houston on our way to Galveston. My, how it's grown! A busy place, for sure!
We are in Galveston, on the beach, in a beachside motel overlooking The Gulf of Mexico and enjoying the mild weather! For some weird reason I can't get Glen Campbell off my mind. Inside my head, he keeps singing, "Galveston, Oh Galveston"!
We stopped for an IHOP breakfast about 10:30. We drive around for a while before checking into out Motel. Now we are resting and deciding what's next!
We left Spring, TX this morning about 8:45 after saying goodbye to our good friends Debbie and Bill Wilkins.....also their daughters, Megan and Jennie and their two Chinese exchange high schoolers, Jill and Xiaone! Oh, yes, and grandson, Max! What a great visit we had! We hated to leave!
We drove through downtown Houston on our way to Galveston. My, how it's grown! A busy place, for sure!
We are in Galveston, on the beach, in a beachside motel overlooking The Gulf of Mexico and enjoying the mild weather! For some weird reason I can't get Glen Campbell off my mind. Inside my head, he keeps singing, "Galveston, Oh Galveston"!
We stopped for an IHOP breakfast about 10:30. We drive around for a while before checking into out Motel. Now we are resting and deciding what's next!
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