Rotorua to Napier

NOTE: You should be able to click on photos to enlarge.

On 13th July we left Rotorua pretty early to head to the Zorbing place. Zorbing is just another one of the Kiwi’s ways to be crazy adventure sport capital of the world—in case you haven’t heard this, New Zealand is just that. Bungee jumping was invented here and the first bridge off which people bungeed is in Queenstown on the South Island.

Don and I saw Zorbing on one of the past years of the Amazing Race tv show. Basically it is a huge plastic ball that looks like a large golf ball, but the middle is hollow and people crawl inside and ride the big ball down a hill in one of two ways: harnessed to the inside so that they roll WITH the ball, or with water on the inside so you can sit and the ball rolls down the hill around you. Don and I had wanted to do the latter—but it was freezing today in Rotorua in the morning, even with the sun out. So we just watched these kids do it and it was kinda gross. In the Amazing Race the contestants had to do it down an open, free hill that was a lot longer and wilder. Here it looks too tame and VERY slow. Bummer. Plus I imagine the insides of those things really smell!

We just took a photo of these girls getting literally birthed out of this thing, the zipper to the inside is opened, the Zorb tilted, the girls slid out and water comes out behind them. BLECH.

We left Rotorua and drove to Taupo to see Lake Taupo, the largest lake in New Zealand. We walked around, Angela used not any old loo, but the SUPER loo! Just in the nick of time too. We visited a sheep shearing place and a wool mart, Don tasted local honeys which are very popular here for all sorts of things, especially hand and body crèmes, soooo nice! Don is proud that these visits were among the top 5 free activities around Taupo—gosh, is he his mother’s son or what!

And just in case you were worried that you wouldn’t be able to get enough American fast food, that there was a single town in this country that didn’t have a McDonalds, fear not. Grand American imports.

We also visited a “waterfall,” the rapids at Aratiatia, at least that is how it was labeled in the guide book. They admitted that it is really a hydro dam over the Waikato River that the government put into a formerly spectacular waterfall for utility purposes, but the tourists complained. So several times a day they open the dam and let the water from the river come through, and it is very cool indeed. So here are some pictures of the process, we are standing over it on a road bridge, so some photos are facing one way, others are down-river facing the other way. You can see a picture of it just after the dam is opened, and then again once tons and tons of water came through it is completely full. They let water out for 30 minutes and I guess kayakers come and try to kayak the river once it’s full, you can see why they would want to because the rocks get completely covered.



When we left Taupo, we apparently neglected to check out the petrol levels in our new car—it had ¼ tank left and we were heading off for 150 kms. Guess what—NOT A SINGLE petrol station on the entire route! About 70 kms into the trip over many “mountain” passes up and down steep hills, the LOW FUEL light came on. KRAIKE! Not sure how you spell it, but it’s very down under to say. So we were freaking out hoping there would be petrol somewhere, but it was totally barren driving. So we drove up the hills at like 40mph and coasted down the hills, drafting any trucks we could draft on. When we went up the hills, low fuel light came on, down the hills, went off. It was like this for the longest time, I hardly remember the drive. For 80 kms we held our breath until the low fuel light was on for good! Finally, a petrol station, we pulled in only to find it was bloody closed and abandoned! Another 15 kms down the road we glided in on wind and finally filled up. Lesson learned! Hellooooooo Napier, good to see ya!

Great photo from Taupo: hard working garbage men are self-proclaimed “Garbologists!” ZOOM IN to sign.

Tomorrow, WINERIES in Napier!! Another day drunk as skunks, that's the way to live!