Trails 2 Travel

 Next is a day in Rotorua/ Waitomo area. We passed by the World famous Paeroa where L&P originated. (It's world famous in New Zealand) haha We even got some to drink. Hurray. It was essentially carbonated lemonade (more lemonade then like sprite) pretty good anyways. Above is the oh so sacred to the Maori people: Green Lake. You cannot touch this lake. (If it had been sunny, the color would've been a lot more obvious.) Below is the blue lake which is literally right next door. I took both pictures standing in exactly the same spot. This one is not as sacred so you can swim or boat around on it. Again... colors would be more vivid in sunlight. It was said the colors were attributed to the type of shells ground up on the bottom of the lake.  Then below is neither of these 2 lakes however it is the very exciting lake we camped on the first night! This picture was taken from our tent's front door. It was AWESOME! (Too bad the water was much too cold and the wea...

... The moment we've all been waiting for. (Trust me I was on edge days waiting to see this!) HOBBITON! It's really out in the middle of no where and surronded by sheep farms, rolling hills, and green grassy knobs with random rocks jutting out of them.. Very Lord of the Ring like.. it was almost enough just to visit the area. Above is the first Hobbit hole you really walk by. I thought it was the prettiest personally as it had a beautiful garden and could have quite nice lighting. The tour was about two hours and they described a lot of ways Peter Jackson was very detailed when designing this set. First example: There were 3 scales of Hobbit holes. The one above was 90%, but there were also 60% scales and 100% scales. To the left: the famous of all: BAG ENG! Across the way is the Green Dragon Tavern which you could actually go in so it was probably one of my more favorite stops. To the left: It was explained that the thousands of sheep surrounding the area were...

We had this spectacular adventure out to Caricari or Black Sand Beaches in the west Auckland area. We crossed many mountainous roads and it was sort of an adventure just to get out here... but we made it. The black sand was really soft and the water cold... not to mention you could physically see the crazy rip tide.. so no swimming again. For those shark lovers out there... apparently the west side of Auckland or these areas are more populated with sharks... so there you go. Personally I was quite taken with the landscape myself... Near the beach they had these pretty little waterfalls and springs. Josh was up dancing around this one saying how deep it was and how they used to jump in them.. Well that had me thinking I just had to get in one and after about 5 minutes of goading (from them.. I really wouldn't have done it without encouragement) the decision was made to skinny dip. (and no I didn't have my bathing suit on hand.. it was a necessary action.) Josh and M...

We got into New Zealand at pretty much midnight there time and still had to get to our hotel. The website said it was a 5 minute walk from the terminal so we start walking with this hotel no where in site... Long story short after wandering around 25 minutes we found it. It was close... but not that close. haha good thing we wanted to stretch our legs. The next morning we got up and got some groceries from the supermarket and then walked back to the air port.. yep in order to get bus passes for the day. (There was a lot of walking involved this day) We took the bus down to the ferry port in Auckland and caught a quick ride over to Devonport! Here are some pictures! Right outside the ferry terminal was this AWESOME tree! I loved it.. and while I feared getting caught/ falling out and hurting myself.. I couldn't resist geting up there at least. The picture to the right is whilst on the ferry of the Auckland bridge connecting it to Orewa and Northern Auckland (we d...