Wednesday November 28
Our flight was at 10:20, and the Queenstown airport is small and close to town, so we were able to sleep in. Our flight to Rotorua was through Christchurch, but we didn't have to change planes. Each leg was about one hour long, and we arrived in Rotorua right before 1:00. We took a shuttle to our hotel, The Hotel Ibis, dropped off our bags, and went to lunch.

True to what we had read, the whole town smelled of sulfur, but we soon grew accustomed to it. We ended up at Relish cafe, where I got gnocchi and Suzy got a pizza, and we split a salad. The food was fine but unremarkable. Afterwards, we wandered through Kulrau Park, where we saw steam rising from from thermal lakes and bubbling mud, and Puarenga Park, which had sprawling lawn tennis and croquet courts, a rose garden, and various touristy things we avoided.

By then it was dinnertime so we went to Pig & Whistle, a restaurant and bar which resides in a building which used to be a police station. I ordered spaghetti with meatballs and Suzy ordered a chicken burger. Both were solid dishes but not exceptional (which considering the price is perfectly reasonable) and filled us up.

Afterwards, Suzy wasn't feeling well, so she went to sleep while I updated the blog.

Thursday November 29
Our travel agent had scheduled a morning tour plus lunch. The tour took us to three places: Te Puia Thermal Reserve, the Agrodome Farm Show, and Rawibow Springs Nature Park

The Te Puia Thermal Reserve sits next to a geyser which erupts once or twice an hour, and also is the site of a Maori school which teaches wood carving and weaving. It also had several Maori structures which allowed tourists to visit and take pictures. Luckily, the geyser erupted while we were there, so we didn't have to go back there later in the day. They also had two endangered kiwi birds; unfortunately because they are nocturnal and in a specially designed habitat, I wasn't able to take any pictures of them.

Our second stop was at Agradome, where they had a farm show. On or way there, we saw someone going down a Zorb. Imagine a life-sized hamster ball rolling down a hill, and that's what the Zorb ride is. At the farm show, they introduced the nineteen breeds of sheep in New Zealand, sheared a sheep onstage, and showed off some sheep herding dogs corralling swans. They also took audience volunteers to milk a cow and hand feed some lambs with milk bottles. At the end, they had an outdoor area where the sheep dogs rounded up four sheep into a corral. The Rainbow Springs Nature Park was our last stop. Here we saw how they hatched and raised several varieties of trout, saw some Keas in aviaries (and impressed several tourists by knowing they could kill sheep), and saw some more Kiwi, also in a nocturnal habitat.

Our tour also included lunch near the top of a nearby mountain. To reach it, we had to take another gondola. While this one wasn't as long as the Queenstown gondola ride or as scenic as the Sydney Zoo gondola (which flew over several animal habitats), it was still a nice ride and view. The picture to the left is from our restaurant table.

The lunch was unfortunately poor, but we ended up with great seats -- right next to the window with a great view of the city and lake. Afterwards we wandered around the scenic track, watched some people on the sling ride which launched you off the mountain before bungee cords pulled you back, and then went back down.

Our guide from the morning had pointed out a McDonalds which was supposedly unique because instead of having traditional McDonalds furniture inside, it had Maori carvings. Near the McDonalds were also several souvenir shops, so we asked our shuttle driver to drop us off there. Unfortunately, the McDonalds wasn't very impressive, nor were the souvenir shops. We did manage to find a jade turtle for Suzy's sister, who was looking after the house while we were gone.

We had a traditional Maori Hangi and concert scheduled for the night, but unfortunately Suzy wasn't feeling well. After the tour picked us up at the hotel, we went to a Maori cultural center where we saw a couple films about Maori history. I'm not sure why they chose to present the information in movie format, as the content in each film could have been summed up in a few sentences each.

After that, the bus took us out of town to a place where they had built a replica of an old Maori village. On the bus we chose a leader who would participate in the welcome ritual. After the ritual we entered the village to learn more about Maori customs, watched a concert where they performed Maori songs, hakas, and dances.

After that, it was time for dinner. Unfortunately by then Suzy was feeling very ill, and didn't eat more than a single bite of the food. We barely missed a bus which was taking an earlier tour back to town, and realized that since we were so far out of town, by the time we could get a cab or any other transportation back, our own bus would be leaving.

I ate a few bites of the chicken and assorted other foods at the dinner while trying to support Suzy as best I could. Afterwards, we went outside; even though it was very cold, there were a couple campfires which warmed us up.

New Zealand towns often seem pretty small. When we arrived in Rotorua, we had taken a shuttle to our hotel, and we had met an Asian-looking couple who were staying at the hotel next door. Later that day, we waved to them as they walked down the street while we were seated on the street at Relish, and the next day we saw them again on the morning tour and again said hi and found out they were from Canada.

Tonight they were doing the same tour as us, but this was the first time we got the opportunity to chat with them at the campfire. We found out their names were Jeff amd Joanne (no idea if that's spelled right) and they were going on the same tour as us the next day as well. Suzy still wasn.t feeling well but did better outside. Back on the bus, the driver asked our appointed leader to convince people to sing a song or tell people something about their country. During the middle of this, he convinced the bus to sing "She'll Be Coming Around the Mountain When She Comes" while doing circles on a roundabout for about two minutes.

Finally we got back to our hotel and called it a night.
 

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