Half a Dozen Memories: Raglan & Rotorua

Where did the last 6 weeks go?! I can't believe it's almost the end of August - Labor Day is coming up, summer is ending 😞 (well for those of you in the USA), and the Vikings have already won and lost their first 2 preseason games. Classic. While I'm still working on part 2 of my family blog, I realized I also have 6 weekends of adventures to share of fun experiences in new places with amazing friends....but I'm not going to put them all in one post. Each trip will get its own blog - which means the next few posts will be more like a series of short stories. This should make it easier to read and I don't have to worry about limiting the amount of pictures I use!🤣 My procrastination skills have certainly not improved since I've been here...but by doing a collection of short stories, I think the task of writing about everything will be more manageable. Let's get to it!

JULY 10TH - 20TH (SCHOOL HOLIDAYS)

When I last wrote, I had mentioned the girls were going to be on school holidays. I had some plans on what to do with them for the two weeks, but plans always change! However, we did enjoy some superhero fun at the library, animal learning at a pet store, exercise at the playground, and making some delicious food. I'll quickly summarize these two weeks in the form of pictures....and a short description of course! 😃

Each school holiday, the library always has activities for the kids. This time, the activities were based around a "Superhero" theme. I took the girls one day and they were able to design their own superhero mask and shield. Ava chose to be known as "Princess Superhero" and Emily decided to go as "Midnight Girl."

A local pet store also had a free activity so I took Emily while Ava was at kindy. The kids learned about fish and turtles, went on a short scavenger hunt in the store, and received a treat bag. Oh! And of course there was free face painting...Emily chose to be a leopard. Quite detailed!

We had a couple days of Lego building...Emily LOVES her Legos! My job was to find the pieces for each step so she could put it all together...it was a great way to use up time!

 After kindy one day, the girls really wanted to go to Emily's school playground...so we did! We stayed until sunset and had fun playing "The Floor is Lava!" If you'll notice, both Emily and Ava are in stripes...and so was I! I unintentionally dressed us all alike on this day.🤣

I introduced the girls to some good 'ol French toast! Ava absolutely loved it. Emily was a little unsure, but after trying it with only maple syrup, she liked it as well. :) Later that day, Emily and I made Puppy Chow and that was a HUGE success...everyone thought it was delicious!

I had planned on taking the girls to the museum, but their dad did over one of the weekends. I had also planned on going to the movies with the girls, but Emily went with a friend and the girls went with their mom over another weekend. So! We found other things to do...and the second week was full of play dates for Emily. Overall, the two weeks went by quickly and we were back to our normal schedule.

Alright. School holidays? Check! Epic weekend week 1 adventure? Coming right up!

SATURDAY, JULY 14TH

I joined a couple of au pairs for a weekend trip to Raglan and Rotorua. I already knew Sarah (from Black Water Rafting and the Escape Room), but I was able to make an awesome new friend from Austria - Clara! We hit it off right away and all three of us had a fun weekend exploring these two towns and the local sights and attractions. Our first stop was in Raglan (located on the West Coast, south of Auckland). While I had already been here with my family, it was fun to go back and look in more shops and eat at a different restaurant. The sun was shining most of our time there...but of course it had to sprinkle a little bit! We also walked across the bridge and on the beach, in addition to shopping and eating. 

The first thing we did was walk across this bridge to go see the black sand and walk on the beach. 

There were these old, huge tires in the sand but this picture is mainly awesome due to what's in front of the tires. 😊

After walking on the beach, we ate lunch at The Shack. We all had 6 grain porridge with poached pear, candied walnuts, muscovado sugar, and vanilla cream. Delicious and very filling!

With stomachs full of porridge, we were ready to walk the streets of Raglan! There were many quaint little shops we perused. Down one side street there was some interactive street art for us to show off our surfing skills...😉

We went into a corner thrift store and Sarah left with a free leather jacket! This place was pretty cool because there was someone singing and a couple tables were set up with little food samples (sushi and finger sandwiches). Next to the store, we came across a painted fence. The above picture is only part of the fence art. After a creepy guy stopped and asked for $200 (no joke), we continued wandering.

If you didn't gather Raglan is a surf town....it is.

We were enjoying the view when a bunch of seagulls just started flying in front of us - it made for a pretty cool picture!

This was probably my favorite store purely because of the unique changing room it had (the TARDIS from the TV show, Doctor Who - if you were wondering!). 

Once we had finished exploring Raglan, we started driving to Rotorua (our main stop of the weekend). First, we had to detour by Bridal Veil Falls to take pictures and enjoy the view. Again, I had already been here with my family, but it was cool to be able to go back and see the falls again.

All too soon, we were back in the car and driving the curvy roads of NZ. During our drive, we ate chocolate, visited, and listened to music.

Here's the route we took, starting in Browns Bay. You can see Raglan on the West Coast and Rotorua more south of Auckland.

Let me just say, you could tell when you were entering Rotorua...the Sulphur smell was strong (imagine Yellowstone, if you've been there). We more or less got used to the smell over the next couple of days...but I'm glad I'm not an au pair there!🤣 We got checked into our hostel and even got a free upgrade to a room for 3 instead of a dorm room for 6! Next, we searched for a place to have dinner and ended up at this out of the way restaurant. It was pretty quiet, but our food was tasty! I had chicken mince on noodles and ginger beer (a delicious, non-alcoholic drink that has become one of my favorites here). 

Before heading back to our hostel, we went shopping for breakfast and treats. Clara had never tried pineapple lumps, so we got those and a couple other NZ goods to eat in our room. We relaxed the rest of the evening at the hostel and I'm happy to say the pineapple lumps were a success!🙌

Night views of Rotorua. 

SUNDAY, JULY 15TH

An overcast morning, but the rain held off while we went to Wai-O-Tapu geothermal park. The first attraction we saw was Lady Knox Geyser. This geyser goes off around 10:15 a.m. each day. We got there early and got amazing front row seats. An employee introduced the geyser and then put some soap chips in it. Soon, we could see the soap bubbling up and then we watched the show! While not as high as Old Faithful, the eruption was still delightful and we captured some great pictures.

 

Clara, Sarah, and I posing with Ms. Lady Knox!

Here's a map of the geothermal park - we walked ALL of the tracks (red, orange, and yellow). 😃

Even though it was an overcast day, the colors of the hot pools were beautiful. There also wasn't a ton of people, so walking through the park was pretty enjoyable. There were 25 major sights to see along the walking paths, which meant we had plenty of opportunities to take pictures and admire the natural geothermal elements in the park. Below are some of the highlights!

Artist's Palette: Formed because of the trace mineral deposits that streak its surface and are distributed by the direction of the wind.

Frying Pan Flat

This water was such a unique color of blue, I had to take a picture.

Lake Ngakoro (the grandfather): Covers about 12 hectares.

Alum Cliffs (I thought it looked like mustard).

The Champagne Pool: Largest spring in the district (65m in diameter and 62m deep). The surface temperature is 74℃. 

Doing handstands is kind of becoming my thing...

🤣

Devil's Bath - Yes this is its actual color! It looks like a mad scientist's potion.

Mud Pools - Watching the mud bubble up was quite mesmerizing! It was also at this point that it started sprinkling...good thing it was the last thing to see at Wai-O-Tapu before we headed back into the city.

Since it was raining out, we had to find things to do indoors. First up? A 3D Trick Art Gallery (the only one in New Zealand!). This place was AMAZING! We had so much fun posing with over 50 murals - it took us over an hour to get through everything! It's going to be difficult to choose which pictures to include here, but what you see will be some of my favorites.😊

These are only a small taste of the MANY pictures we took there...but doesn't it look like fun?! Let me tell you, this gallery is not just for kids. 😉 Once we had gotten through all of the murals, it was unfortunately still raining outside. Next up? Bowling! It was Clara's first time, and she did pretty great.🖐 We only played one game - I won, but it was still a sad score (112).  Before eating dinner, we decided to drive to The Redwoods Whakarewarewa Forest to see the lighted lanterns for the treewalk. We didn't do the walk, but did take some pictures and made a plan to come back the next day. To end the night, we went out for curry! It was the perfect meal to eat on a cold, rainy evening and it was delicious.

A lovely street art scene.

MONDAY, JULY 16TH

It turned out we all had Monday off, so we extended our trip into a 3-day weekend. There was just too much to see! We started our morning in Kuirau Park - the only public geothermal park in NZ. Yes, the smell was strong at some points, but we still enjoyed walking the various paths.

 Kuirau Park

❤️

You can see how much steam there was!

Our walk continued up a hill to the hospital, which provided us with a great panoramic view of Rotorua and the lake. Then, we walked down to a Maori Village of Ohinemutu where we were able to see Tama-Te-Kapua marae (Maori meeting house) and St. Faith’s Anglican Church. It was very quiet, so we just walked around and then left to go near Lake Rotorua's waterfront. Of course I had to go geocaching! We eventually found the cache and I think the geocaching community gained two new members...😁

View from the hospital. You can see the steam rising from some hot pools!

Meeting house in Ohinemutu.

Because why wouldn't you want to hang out on one leg? #flamingowannabe

The end of our walk brought us by another geocache, followed by the Rotorua Museum and the Government Gardens. The flowers were beautiful, along with the architecture of the museum. We didn't have the time to go inside, but the outside was fantastic!

Geocache #2 location.

Gorgeous!

Posing in the gazebo!

Entrance to the gardens and museum.

See? It's my thing.

We had paid for 3 hours of parking and our time was almost up when we left the museum and gardens. Once we got back, we saw we had a few more minutes and took that time to stop by the Hobbiton booking center. I grabbed a picture with Gandalf - so my day was made! After moving the car, we then went to - of course - get ice cream! I chose boysenberry and classic chocolate, I believe. A delicious treat that was well-deserved after 3 hours of walking.🍦

 I loved stopping here - it brought back memories of Hobbiton!

The myth, the man, the legend.

On our way to get ice cream, we came upon this neat little play area where there were mini trampolines...what a fun idea to have for kids (and adults)!

Pre-lunch.

Happy after eating ice cream, we then drove back to the Redwoods to take a short hike through the forest. Seeing the trees in the daylight was incredible because of their height and the fact that they were Californian Redwoods - so a bit of the USA in NZ! The walk was beautiful and only a whiff of the Sulphur hit our noses every once in awhile.

😍 

 Beautifully blue/clear water we saw partway into our hike.

 One of my favorite handstand pics purely because of how small I look compared to the trees. Perspective!

Mandatory selfie.

You are looking at one of the bathrooms at the Redwoods Park. Fancy, am I right?!

Sadly, after we finished our hike, we had to head back north to Auckland. Before we left Rotorua, we stopped at our favorite pie place (Jesters) and had lunch. Jesters has seriously had the best pies I've tried here in NZ - steak and cheese is my favorite!

Before this weekend, it had been a few months since my last pie...

The drive back didn't take too long - we were all a little tired but made good time! Sarah and Clara dropped me off back in Browns Bay and then they continued north to their homes. The weekend was great and I felt refreshed and able to take on the last week of school holidays! And even better...I found my Fiji buddy! Yes, you read correctly. Clara and I both had wanted to go to Fiji during our time in NZ, so we decided to go together. I can't wait! 

Week 1 = DONE! Week 2? Coming soon!