Day 8 – Monday

Today we leave for Napier and Google maps tells me it’s 240km and 2hr 40mins to get there. We plan on doing a few things along the way so it will definitely take longer. We pack up and were are on the road by 8:30. Our first stop is the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland which is about 25km out of Rotorua. Here we can see the thermal mud baths, the hot springs and the Lady Knox Geyser. We get to the Thermal Wonderland just after 9am and it’s not very busy. We read that the Geyser goes off at 10:15 every day and it is recommended to buy tickets before 9:45. The lady at the ticket counter tells us we don’t have time to do all three paths around the thermal wonderland before we will need to drive back about 5 km’s to see the Geyser and we need to leave at about 9:50. We walk around the main path and I soon realise that this is one of the most amazing natural wonders I think I’ve ever seen. There is steam pouring out of the ground all over the place and mud baths bubbling away. We eventually get to Champagne Pool which is the pool you see in all the brochures with its boiling water and yellow and ochre pool edges. I had read some reviews on trip advisor about this place and some people we suggesting it was a place that stunk and was a waste of time. I’m not sure what they were looking at because we loved it. We went back to the car at 9:45 and already there was a throng of people making their way to the geyser. We drive the short distance and park the car and head in to see the geyser. It’s set up like an amphitheatre and the place slowly starts to get packed. I reckon there is about 500 people here. The geyser doesn’t actually go off naturally, instead a guide puts some detergent type substance down the hole and the geyser slowly goes off. It starts off foaming and within a minute its squirting huge amounts of water high into the sky. As we leave to head back to the thermal wonderland the car queue is massive and slow. We decide to bail on the parts of the thermal wonderland we didn’t get to see before and get back on the road because the place is going to be ridiculously busy. We make our way to Taupo and stop off to check out the Huka Falls which are about 5-10kms prior to reaching Taupo. The falls are pretty specky and we continue on. As we come over the hill into Taupo we notice the lake and then on the horizon over the lake is the massive volcano with it’s white snowy top which blows our minds. We stop in Taupo for lunch on the grass of the foreshore and we reckon this place looks pretty good and wished we had of stayed here. We continue on again and like our last drive the scenery is incredible but only better this time. We make it to Napier which looks nice and we book in to our accommodation which is on Marine Parade overlooking the beach. We dump our stuff and go for a walk through the town. The town is known for it’s art deco buildings which were built after an earthquake levelled the joint back in 1931. After that we shower up and head down to the harbour where there are some restaurants and bars overlooking the water and boats. We have a drink in one bar and move to another for a bite to eat. A great spot to have a drink but the food was crap and overpriced. We decide to head back to the accommodation where Kris and I have a spa (which is open and in the main area of the room) and a glass of wine while the kids hide out in their rooms hoping to not get a glimpse of their parents in the nude.

PAKnSAVE

PAKnSAVE is a NZ supermarket in the style of a Bunnings Warehouse, their huge and they have become our supermarket of choice over here. We discovered them while in Rotorua and one day I said to everyone “lets go to the PARK n SAVE”, after seeing the sign and thinking that’s what it was called. Mia quickly corrects me (as she has been known to do….regularly) and says “Dad, it’s the PAK n SAVE. Me, trying to pretend I knew all along and was just joking around replied “I know it’s the PARK n SAK, Mia” of which Mia replied, “Daaaaad, it’s the PAK n SAVE”. Thus, (that is not me saying “this” in my NZ accent, I’m actually saying thus) starting the PAKnSAVE name changing joke. Every time we needed to go to PAKnSAVE it would become “Let’s go to PARK n SAK or PAK n SAK or BACK, CRACK N SAK or SCRATCH N SNIFF all the while Tyler would be whinging “Be quiet, it’s not funny”. But Kris, Mia and I were having a ball. Every time Tyler whinged, we would come up with another stupid name. It took about 3 days, but he eventually joined in.

Day 7 – Sunday

The alarm rings out at 5:30am and I’m probably not quite ready to get up yet. I force myself out of bed and give the kids a shake. We have some brekky and jump in the car to get to the Zip Line Canopy Tour Office by 6:30ish. The weather today is perfect, just like yesterday, a bit fresh but blue skies. Once at the office we fill in some forms and the guides rig us all up with harnesses. We are in a group of 10 with a family of 5 from NSW and one bloke from the UK. Our Guides, Kris and Abbey (or Ebbey and she pronounced it) loaded us into the bus and took us for the short drive to the forest, about 5-10km’s away. Once there it was a short walk through the forest to the first zip line platform for a 70m long zip line ride. Kris and Tyler are packing their daks and it was hilarious to watch Kris stepping off the platform. We do a couple more zip lines and then we get to the big daddy, a 220m long zip line way above the forest canopy. At this stage Kris still hasn’t managed to do a zip line with her eyes open or with her hands off the zip line rope. This didn’t change for the 220m long zip line for Kris but the rest of us are loving it. In total there were 6 lines totalling about 670 metres and the tour took about 3 ½ hours. It was a lot of fun and a tour I think all of us would recommend. After we arrived back at the office we crossed the road and headed to Skyline Rotorua. Skyline is a gondola ride up to the top of the “mountain” or “very high hill” and at the top there are a bunch of different activities to do with the main one being the Luge. We purchase the family pass which gives us the gondola ride and 10 luge rides to share. There are 3 tracks, the scenic route (for pussies), the intermediate route (also for pussies) or the advanced route (for tough guys). We start off on the scenic route (because it’s our first time and they don’t allow us to do any other route without the necessary experience) and the luge proves to be an instant winner for us and we can’t wait to get back up to do the intermediate route. This is not to say the scenic route was lame but it was full of Indians and Asians. Now I know this is can be viewed as a contentious remark but if you have ever driven a car you will know that Indians and Asians cannot drive. This is no different on the luge. The scenic route is meant for beginners but you risk you life dodging and weaving the Indians and asians putt-putting it down the hill or the stationary Indian women who has decided it’s all too hard for them and they decide to leave their luge and bail. Anyway, once we get back to the top via the chairlift, we hit the intermediate track and I become Daniel Ricciardo but only better and I zoom down the track at a speed only previously witnessed on the space shuttle Atlantis! I flog Tyler and Mia by about 3 days and wait at the bottom to gloat. Kris decided with only 10 rides that Tyler, Mia and me should have 3 each and she’d stick with just the one scenic ride which was a good idea because Kris, a helmet and a luge just do not mix. This combination redefines the word NERD!!! We chair lift it back to the top and we line up for the advanced route. The kids are now aware that they are up against probably one of the worlds best luge riders and are talking about who is going to come second. I give the kids a good head start and it’s a lot of fun chasing them down. This track is insane and at one point the track dips and it feels like you get airborne. I’m on Mia’s hammer jut as we get to this bit and as we come out of it Mia is heading for the wall. She slams on the skids and I go whizzing past. Tyler also proves an easy get and by the time we get to the bottom we are all talking about purchasing some more rides. We get to the top and decide we will come back and do the night luge which starts at 6:30pm. The night luge is cheaper and as we have already paid for the gondola ride it’s cheaper again. We head back to the apartment to have some lunch and a swim before jumping back in the car and returning to Skyline. This time we purchase 14 rides, 2 for Kris and 4 each for Mia, Tyler and me. We have an absolute ball and this place has become a favourite of ours and its great to know they have one in Queenstown and we all agree that we will be heading there once we make our way to the South island. We head home around 9:30 and everyone thinks that this has been our best day yet. It’s been a long day full of adventure, excitement and fun and a great way to leave Rotorua for Napier tomorrow.

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.

Day 5 – Friday (Xmas Day)

The kids come in and wake us up early this morning keen to get the second round of present opening underway. After that it’s our Xmas breakfast which consists of croissants and jam, orange juice and a couple of coffees which Kris and the kids went to get from the Coffee Club around the corner. The weather this morning started out cold and cloudy but as the morning goes on it starts to clear a little. By 10:15 we are out the door heading off to the wharf to catch the ferry over to Devonport. Devonport is only a 12 minute ferry ride away, similar to catching the ferry from Sydney to Manly. It costs $36 for a return family ticket which is reasonable. We’re pretty much expecting there to be little open today being Xmas day so we intend to just see how we go. Once in Devonport we walk past the main street, where everything is shut apart from one café, and we head up Mt Victoria. At the top of Mt Victoria you get a fantastic view looking back over Auckland. After taking some photos we walk back down with the thought of getting a coffee at the café we walked past earlier. When we get inside and check out the menu it looks really good and the prices are even better so we decide to stay and have a Xmas lunch. We order a bottle of wine and some lunch and when it comes out it looks fantastic. We finish off with some desert and we reckon for 150 bucks we weren’t going to get anything better or cheaper in Auckland on Xmas day so it turned out really well. We walk back to the ferry terminal, jump on the ferry and head back to the city. We decide to go back to the apartment for a quick break before we head back out. While there I decide to call Mum to say merry Xmas. As soon as she answers the phone she sounds upset and puts me straight on to my brother, Greg. At this point I know something is wrong. Greg starts to tell me that there has been an accident and his son, Lachlan was badly injured in a traffic accident in Kalgoorlie. He was flown down to Perth by the Royal Flying Doctors Service but unfortunately he succumbed  to his injuries. Lachlan was 16. I’m in total disbelief and I can’t speak as my brother is explaining to me what happened. It happened on Tuesday but no one has been able to get in contact with us to let us know. I’m devastated. Devastated for Lachlan, devastated for Greg, my Mum, my family, Lachlan’s family and everyone who knew Lachlan or was associated with him. The afternoon was a bit of a blur and we decided to stay in.

After the devastating news of Lachlan’s passing, I initially decided that I could not continue writing the blog. I have had 3 or 4 days to reflect and feel that whether I write my blog or not, it  does not change how upset I feel and it does not change how much I am thinking of my brother and my family at this time.

Day 4 – Thursday

This morning when we get up it is pretty cold and very overcast and looks like it could rain today. After brekky we head down to Queen Street where we are going to jump on the InnerLink bus. When we get to the bus stop, there’s a cop standing there with a dude in hand cuffs. The cop has a heap of dough in his hands so maybe this dude’s just been busted for ripping someone off. The bus we are catching is the local bus that costs $2.50 each ($10 total) and pretty much loops around the wider outskirts of the city taking in the fringe suburbs. The one thing we’ve found out about Auckland is, nothing is cheap. When I asked the bus driver if the ticket last all day he says “Nah, when you get off and you want to get back on you have to buy another ticket”. Far out, I’m thinking. Maybe that dude in handcuffs was a bus driver!!!. This bus pretty much does what the Perth CAT busses do but obviously in Perth they’re free. Anyway, the loop around took about an hour and it was really good to see the outskirts of the city. There was hardly a dead zone around the entire loop with the streets lined with shops, cafés and restaurants. Ponsonby Road, Karangahape Road and Parnell Street reminding me a lot of Mt Lawley, Leederville and Vic Park. By the time we have done the loop it has started to rain. This puts the kibosh on our next activity which was catching the ferry over to Devonport. So instead we wonder around trying to find somewhere cheap for lunch. We soon realise that “cheap” and “lunch” do not go together in Auckland so we end up buying some stuff at the supermarket and heading home to make something. The rain has set in now, it pretty much has been going non stop, just heavy enough to be annoying but after lunch we decide to find something to do indoors. We originally decide to go to the Auckland Museum thinking it was close by. But just before we leave we realise it’s a fair hike and with the rain getting harder we change our mind and head to the Maritime Museum instead. We leave the hotel and it is raining hard now. One umbrella between four of us aint cutting it so Kris and I don the rain jackets. By the time we get to the Museum we are drenched. As we approach the entrance we notice the sign on the door “last entry 2:30pm”. It’s 3:20pm….damn! We decide to find a coffee shop instead and as it turns out we end up at the coffee shop 20m from the entrance of our hotel. Could have saved ourselves an hour and a drenching by just going there in the first place. As we leave the coffee shop the rain has stopped. We head back to the apartment and research a few things, one being what we re going to do in Rotorua and we end up booking a 3 hour zip-line tour for Sunday the 27th. We then shower up and head out for dinner, to guess where? We can’t beat the quality and value of this joint so it’s spaghetti bog again. Just before we leave we check the sky and it looks like the rain is done for the day so we head out without our jackets and very small dodgy umbrella supplied by the hotel. While having dinner the rain comes back and it’s getting heavy. We finish our meal and we have to make the mad dash home in the rain always passing people with big awesome complimentary umbrellas from their hotels, Stamford Plaza, Rydges, Pullman Hotel, all the classy joints but not our little budget Barclays. This kids jump into bed, while Kris and I wrap presents for round 2 of Xmas day tomorrow.

Day 3 – Wednesday

We wake up and Auckland is turning it on. The weather is as close to perfect as you’re going to get, blue skies and early to mid 20’s. The forecast is for rain but we aint seeing it. I’m up around 8am but it’s not until 9:30 that the kids surface. We brekky up, get ready and hit the road. As we leave the hotel we ask the concierge for some advice on where to head. He tells us about Parnell or Parnell Rd which is about a half hours walk away past some of Auckland’s parks. To get there we need to go via Queen Street, Auckland’s main shopping street. We look through a few shops and keep going. We head up through Albert Park on the very edge of the city which is really nice and keep walking. We find ourselves walking down a bushy track before popping out at Parnell Rd. This road reminds us of walking through Vic Park but smaller. There’s lots of street shops and café’s. It’s approaching lunch so we stop in at “Mink Cafe”, a café on a corner. We grab a table outside and order. The food was alright but way over priced. I overheard the kiwi guy on the next table order the “simun silad” but when it comes out I hear him say to his friend “it’s a bit of a case of spot the simun” so I guess he’s feeling he’s not getting his money’s worth. We continue walking, but this time back toward the city along the waterfront. We stumble on a bunch of funky areas along the way, little squares and malls, some with bean bags on grassed area’s with a band playing. Auckland is quite a cool little city with little vibrant pockets scattered around. We get back to the apartment and rest a while before getting ready to head out in the late arvo. Before finding somewhere to eat we are going to check out the Sky Tower which we can see clearly from our apartment. It costs us $61 for a family pass to head up the tower, firstly to level 51 and then to level 60. It is a great view from up there, you can see a 360 degree view of the city and you can see for miles. After that, it’s back down to the Viaduct area for a drink at a bar called “The Crew Club” which is like an up market Lucky Shag. We move from there and straight back to Portofino (the place we had dinner yesterday) because we are creatures of habit and when you’re onto a good thing you stick to it. This is a very Italian restaurant, owned and waited by very Italian people so it feels very authentic. A bottle of Chianti and some spaghetti bog later we start the walk home. By now the weather has become cold and it’s raining so we head to Countdown (Woolworths) for some ice-creams and the Coffee Club for coffee and back to the apartment.