Day 6 – Saturday

Today we are leaving Auckland for Rotorua so we pack our gear, have a quick breakfast and it’s a short walk down to collect the car from the car rental place. Once were all signed up we pull out and as I turn left into the first corner (as per my google maps instruction) I quickly realise I’m turning the wrong way down a one way street. I make an emergency adjustment and avoid the oncoming traffic. Not a good start! We get back to the hotel, load up our gear and try to get the Navman up and running. The Navman has other ideas so we resort back to my printed maps from Google and hit the road. The directions are pretty simple, a couple of turns, get onto highway 1 and keep going. The roads are extremely well sign posted which makes the drive even easier. Once out of Auckland and into the country the view opens up and we have mountains to the left and rolling hills to the right. The scenery is very picturesque and about half way into the journey we stop off at a roadside café. I was told by a friend just prior to leaving that there are a lot of roadside café’s through NZ and they all sell home made food and that we should stop and try them out. Her advise proves correct and the café we stop at sells muffins that are still displayed in the tins they were cooked in and they were awesome. We continue on past some lovely towns and eventually get within a few km’s of Rotorua. The view coming down the hill into Rotorua is spectacular looking over the lake. We arrive at the accommodation office and jump out of the car and the first thing we notice is the smell. It smells a bit like a sewer! We are a bit keen and have arrived too early so we get back in the car and head down to the lake for a look around. A quick trip to the supermarket and then back to the office at 2pm. We get shown to our accommodation and as we walk in the smell is intense. I said to Kris “It smells like this house has a gas leak”. It’s not until Kris mentions that Rotorua is known for it’s sulphur smell that it twigs. We dump our gear and head out to check out the city centre. Rotorua city centre is a lot like Busselton but a little bigger. Not much is open today and even less as far as somewhere to eat. We stumble on the Pig & Wistle, an old pub and as we walk past we notice they have two plasma screens side by side showing the NZ v Sri Lanka ODI and the Aussie Boxing Day Test. Tyler and I make an executive decision and decide “we’re eating here”. I can’t think of anything better than being at a pub and watching two games of cricket simultaneously, especially when one of them is the Boxing Day Test!! After that we walk back to the apartment where Kris and Mia go for a swim in the complex pool. Kris jumps in and goes under not realising that the pool water temperature is at about 37 degrees. It’s a warm day in Rotorua so probably not what she was hoping for. I take Tyler down the park to have a hit with the cricket bat. We brought over Tyler’s bat, gloves and a few balls so we could continue to train a bit whenever we get the opportunity. After that we shower up and head back into the city centre for dinner. Theres a spot they call “Eat Streat” which has about a dozen restaurants side by side along a mall style street. We settle on CBK (Craft Bar & Kitchen) which is a stone-grill restaurant. Steaks and other meats come out on a hot stone and it cooks while you’re eating it at the table. The food was fantastic and great value for money. By the time we finish it’s nudging 10 o’clock so we make our way home because tomorrow we’ll need to be up at 5:30am to go on our zip line canopy tour through the forest.