Barney, Wellies and NZ Part 6

It's been a busy week this week, we've lifted boats out - well not physically ourselves obviously, but organised and winterised them, one here in the Marina and one we picked up from Vounaki, the Sunsail base south of here on the mainland and took it just a bit north of here to Prevesa.

And our foster cat has come to stay again, he sulked for a couple of days when his Mum and Dad left him, then he came in, ate his own body weight in food and decided he was settled in......

Most importantly my new wellies arrived - yea .........

Just in time as well, it's going to rain all week now!


Michael and Eve arrive in NZ

Wellington is COLD and raining. winter is definately on its way. Marks friend came from Whitby in the UK and now lives in Whitby in NZ – how bizarre is that?? We spent a couple of nights with him, explored abit of Wellington, the museum and the local restaurants. Both shocked at how early everything closes, apart from one street in Wellington where the nightclubs are everyone’s gone home by 11pm – amazing. Wellington can be a very nice city, but it's difficult for anywhere to look really attractive in this weather. So May 30th we take a quick flight back up to Auckland – Michael arrives in 2 days and I want some time with Mum before the mayhem ensues.

June 1st Michael and Eve arrive in Auckland, minus their bag with all their snowboarding gear – oh dear, fingers crossed it arrives in the next couple of days. Fantastic to see them, haven't seen them since June 09 when they came out to Greece and we've got two weeks together. June 2nd, lunch with my cousin, she lives a few minutes walk from a lovely beach so after lunch we all trapse down and let the dog have a mad half hour in the warm sunshine - YES SUNSHINE, its lovely and warm in Auckland. June 3rd we're off to Rotorua, home to bubbling mud pools, hot sulfur pools, geysers and stinky smells.

Sixteen years ago we took Michael and his cousin Hayley to Hells Gate and then prices for entry were reasonable, now it's spoiled slightly by the excessive price you have to pay to get in. Unfortunately this became a theme of the visit to Rotorua, everything touristy was ridiculously expensive and it's a real shame because many people will be put off visiting this truly amazing volcanic region.

While at Hells Gate we tried our hand at simple wood carvings, the instructor said they were simple, you would have thought we were producing master pieces with the looks of concentration on our faces!

Not far from Hells Gate is the Giant Redwood forest, very spectatular, we took a walk though at dusk and the colours where really lovely.

Giant Redwood - our arms aren't long enough!!

June 3rd We had planned go to an evening of Maori dancing and 'hangi' (hangi is the method of cooking food in the ground and is mouth wateringly delicious), however the price for this was over $100 per head!!! We couldn't believe it, that's outrageous and disappointing, the budget is only going to stretch so far! So we head to Huka Falls between Rotorua and Taupo. Eating lunch on the banks of Lake Taupo we read that Taupo was the world’s biggest and most destructive volcanic eruption ever, over 50 times the magnitude of the Mt St Helen's eruption. Mt St Helen moved 3 cubic kilometers of earth, Lake Taupo moved 110 cubic kilometers! This eruption is regarded as the biggest in the last 5000 years. The event was recorded by the Chinese and the Romans. The Chinese actually heard the bang and made a record of the brilliant sunsets that lasted approximately 6 months - how's that for spectatular!

Looking across Lake Taupo towards Mt Tarawera

More piccies here of Rotorua and Taupo

Lake Taupo is fed from the surrounding moutains and then feeds into the Waikato River. Along the Waikato is a series of nine hydroelectric dams and we discover that the first damn (Aratiatia) will be opening it's gates and releasing water at 2pm. It was 1.45 and we were 12kms away, cue the race to get to the damn before the water was released. We made it with a couple of minutes to spare and were rewarded with a very satisfactory siren. Another siren on one minute upped the anticipation. We could see a water line against the rocks, way above the current calm pool, and never thought it could be reached, how wrong we were. Over a period of half an hour we watched gallons of water flood into a pool below the bridge, thunder noisly down the narrow gorge and cover extrememly large rocks, creating a foaming sea of brilliant turquoise and reaching that water line. When the gates of the dam closed and the flood water carried on it's way down the river with the pool and narrow gorge slowly receeded back to the calm trickle it started with. One of those sights that has to be seen to be believed. The hour we were there seemed to pass in just minutes.

You can see the series of pictures of the flooding and receeding water from the dam here

Time to head back to Auckland. For dinner we stop to get takeaway from Noodle Hut, a new age fast food concept, fairly common throughout NZ and they’re awesome, everything is cooked fresh in front of you, huge portions and VERY hot, lovely finish to the day.

Next time family reunion and finding Lord of the Rings sites.