Amazing New Zealand

For our 15th wedding anniversary, Candace and I had an amazing 1.5 week trip to New Zealand and Tahiti.  It was one of our best trips ever.  I was surprised at how beautiful both islands were and we felt like kids again playing and visiting with long-time friends.

Day 1

We left our children in the capable hands of my Mom and Dad Ball.  After a short 11 hour flight from Bangkok to Auckland, New Zealand, we donned our coats (it was 60 degrees!), picked up our rental car, and drove 3 hours down to Hamilton.  We stopped at the beautiful Hamilton Gardens and remembered how delicious it is to be outside when it isn’t 90 degrees.  :-)

We were excited to visit the Hamilton temple that night and do some work for some of our ancestors.  We picked up pizza in town and did some grocery shopping of our favorite food we don’t normally get.  We slept at the temple housing and enjoyed a great night’s sleep. Great first day!

Day 2

We checked out early and drove down to the Waitomo Caves.  We couldn’t get enough of the rolling green hills, sheep, and cows.  I think we took 100 pictures of it all.  You seriously feel like you’re driving through Tolkein’s Middle Earth and Hobbiton.

Waitomo Caves were amazing!  I’ve done a fair amount of caving, but these caves had it all: colors, caverns, stalagmites, stalactites, rivers flowing through them, and best of all, glow worms! My favorite part was floating on a boat in the pitch dark and looking up and seeing a “sky” full of glow worms above us.  You could see your hand in front of your face because of the light given off from these small worms.  No words to describe it…

Here’s what the glow worms look like in light, and in dark:

We could have spent a few days in Waitomo, but wanted to soak up as much of New Zealand as we could, so we raced off to Rotorua later that afternoon…just a short 3 hour drive East.

Rotorua is a tourist’s haven.  There are all sorts of adventures and play things to do as well as amazing nature.  This afternoon, we went to the gardens, saw the thermal pools in the middle of downtown (soaked our feet!), and wrapped up the day at a Mauri Cultural show, complete with a wonderful meal, dancing, nature walk, and more glow worms.  We drove to our hotel on the lake and collapsed from a truly amazing day!

This was the centerpiece of the Mauri village: a natural, pure spring with the bluest water I’ve seen outside of an ocean…

Day 3

The next day we woke up early and I did a white water rafting/waterfall trip.  It was one of the neatest thing’s I’ve ever done.  We went over a 21 foot waterfall and several smaller falls.  Wow.

That afternoon, we went mountain biking on some of the best trails I’ve ever seen. The fauna was a mix of tropical and red woods. Candace did great and we had a lot of fun.  I took a spill half way through and ripped a HUGE hole in my pants.  Fun times.

We then went hiking up a nearby hill and caught some great photos of the area.  That evening, we hopped in our car and drove back to Auckland for a nice night at a quaint hotel not too far from the airport.  We love New Zealand!

Day 4…or was it 3?

We caught a late morning flight to Tahiti, only to arrive early evening the previous day!  Got to love the int’l date line.  More on Tahiti in the next post.

For anyone who is thinking of a vacation to New Zealand, we can’t recommend it enough!