TRAVELING

TRAVELING TO WANAKA, NZ

Today we have a traveling day. We arose early and had our dose of breakfast, coffee and vitamins. We finished last minute packing and headed for the tiny Hyundai Compact with our luggage; it was like stuffing 10 pounds into a 5 pound sack, but we managed! Ron has been our designated driver these past few days and he was glad that this was his last day of driving! Driving on the left side of the road takes a lot of concentration, not to mention all FOUR of us! We joked about sightseeing with a dyslexic driver, a blind navigator and two hysterical women in the back seat, as we made our way about!

We left Rotorua this morning about 10:30. Our twin engine prop-driven Air NZ craft was about 20 minutes late taking off because of heavy ground fog in Wellington, where we will switch planes, bound for Queenstown. The longer we waited, the longer the delay, the more Debby and Nancy shopped in the airport gift shop! Ron and I would have bought handcuffs or manacles and tied the girls to their chairs but we couldn't find any! We were grateful when the Wellington fog lifted enough for us board the plane!

The hour long flight to Wellington was uneventful.....THANK GOODNESS!! Flying over the NZ countryside was fun. Looking down on the farmlands and mountains; seeing steam rising into the sky from volcanic fissures was interesting. The crops seemed to be planted as near to the geothermal vents as possible. What I could see from the air was probably nothing to what could be seen from the ground. I guess this thermal activity makes one understand why NZ is referred to as "The Shaky Isles"!

We still made our connecting flight in Wellington. It was delayed also due to the fog. The 90 minute flight to Queenstown was mostly above cloud cover. We were originally scheduled to meet our Australian friends in Queenstown and rent a vehicle for the week. They had to cancel due to Jan's brother's bad health. She felt like she was needed to be closer to him during his battle for his life. We completely understand and would probably do the same if it was us! We aren't sure what we will do now regarding us to getting to Wanaka from Queenstown. Guess we will figure that out after we get there. Right now, I've got to focus on FLYING!!!

UPDATE:

We had a good flight to Queenstown. After picking up our luggage, we checked on car rentals, road conditions, shuttles, taxis and bus transportation to Wanaka. We opted for the $35/ea. bus transport. In about 15 minutes we were onboard and heading into the mountains.

Beautiful country arounds here! Our Worldmark Resort is about 2 Km from downtown. It sets on the shore of a beautiful lake; mountains all around. Our second story two bedroom condo has a beautiful view of the pool and the mountains. I think we're going to like it here!

It's ALL good!

TOURANGA, NZ

TOURANGA, NZ

Sunday morning, March something, 2013, we headed to church. We had scoured the Rotorua phone book and the Internet search engines for a local church, but we found none of our particular constitution. We did, however, locate a couple of Churches of Christ in Turanga, NZ, about 90 minutes drive to the coast.

The drive was adventurous, for sure. We left our condo with maps and rough directions that we had copied from the local third world Internet service, which I may talk about later.

The highway took us through a Gorge along a narrow, winding two-lane road. The NZ countryside is mostly hills and dales, created from a lot of volcanic upheaval a few eons ago. There still abounds a lot of geothermal activity around Rotoura. The belching sulphur. hot water and steam vents are plentiful. I told Ron that being in the "down under" part of the world, we might be closer to Hell than we think! So driving down the road not far from the airport, we see a sign pointing down a side road that says, "Hell's Gate". Really??

As we approached Touranga, the road split without signs identifying the roads. We quickly took our best guess and headed towards city center. Running out of time and still half way displaced, Nancy spied a "Church of Christ" sign on a modest building. Ron wheeled a "U-ie" and we pulled onto their grass covered parking lot.

The church was small. Debby counted 22 in attendance. The preacher was from Texas. He had moved his family here to work with the church, living off his savings and retirement income. After services, we were invited to remain for their "pot luck". Not wishing to pass up a good NZ meal, we stayed. The food and fellowship was great! We also learned that there is a church in Rotorua, just down the road from the airport (hopefully not down the road that leads to "Hell's Gate")!

We drove downtown and crossed the bridge over to Mount Maunganui to see the beach and all the hubbub. It was a busy place; lots of people about. The mountain was not that big and was a local hiking spot. It's an old volcano a few hundred feet high.

We headed back to Rotorua on a different road so we could see more of the same kind of countryside, only different. We came back to the condo and called the church in Rotorua. They were meeting tonight in one of the members' home on the other side of town. One of the church families is moving to Australia this week and they were having a farewell BBQ. We were invited to come, so we did! It was a great time of fellowship, meeting new people and sharing great NZ food! It was a great evening!

Today was our lucky day!!

OKERE FALLS

OKERE FALLS and the REDWOODS

Another leisurely morning around the Condo today. We are nearing our end of stay on the North Island. Still craving new sights, we took a short drive out to a scenic river to see OKERE FALLS. The parking lot was only about halfway full as we pulled in, so the trail should not be too crowded. The short hike though the thick New Zealand forest was beautiful. We could hear the roar of the falls as we neared the overlook point. A few people stood by waiting for a group of whitewater rafters to come. With cameras ready we all prepared ourselves for some free entertainment. The colorful rafts and screaming rafters came floating down the falls, crashing into the white foam, performed time and time again, until 5 or 6 rafts had jumped the falls.

As the rafters continued along, we hit he trail to the viewing platform of the next falls. Again, they were fun to watch. This was definitely something that we MIGHT do. Perhaps if the water was warmer, and my arthritic bones were easier to move, and if it was Tuesday, I might have booked a spot on the boat!

Ron and I hit the trail for the final falls and the end of their excursion, while the girls hit the trail back to the parking lot. We watched the rafts to the end and then we returned to the parking lot. The water was crystal clear and inviting, regardless of its temperature! But we were satisfied without partaking!

From OKERE FALL we headed to another short hiking place along a beautiful creek, through a forest of large REDWOOD TREES. The walk along this crystal clear stream was the most scenic we have seen! The large Redwoods towered more than a hundred feet high, or so it seemed! Some were as much as 4 or5 feet in diameter! The sign said that these were like those in California along the coast, but that these were all planted in 1919. Two thousand years from now these will be more than huge!

Half of the scenic creek came from HAMURANA SPRINGS, a deep, underground cold water spring. There were kids swimming in the 51 degree water. I have never seen water this clear in my life. I always thought some of Oregon's lakes and streams were clear....and they may be! But this water is unlike any I've seen. The deep spring belches more than 1,000,000 gallons of 51 degree water every hour! Quite a sight!

The New Zealand vegetation along the Creek mingles Yucca type vegetation, tree ferns and Giant Redwood Trees, creating a spectacular vision!

This one gets TWO THUMBS UP!!

TE PUIA, ROTORUA, NZ

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!!

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!

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!

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."