Road trip: Day 1 - Whangarei-Rotorua-Taupo
Last night Matt was itching to go fishing. He was all ready and set to go, but I managed to convince him that it would be better to leave early the next morning and then get a whole day AND night fish out of it. Luckily he agreed and we packed our bags.
However, after waking up this morning somehow Matt had decided to instead of going fishing as usual he finally wanted to see Te Papa, New Zealand's National Museum in Wellington. We'd been talking about this a few times over the last couple of weeks and now with both of us having some time off seemed to be the perfect timing. So we added a few things to our bags, stuffed a matress in the back of our truck and off we went. ROAD trip *woohoo*
Since Wellington is quite a way away from Whangarei we decided to do a few stops in between.First we headed down to Rotorua and Matt showed me around the areas he grew up in. Our first main stop was Lake Tarawera just outside Rotorua.
Mount Tarawera made the area famous when the volcano erupted in 1886 and destroyed lots of settlements, burnt villages and the Pink and White Terraces - once considered the 8th Wonder of the World.
I have been to Lake Tarawera before when I travelled the North Island in 2011 with Johanna, a Swiss Au Pair, and some Couchsurfers we had picked up in Auckland. Matt knows heaps about the area, though, so I got to see ancient Maori Rock Carvings and we found a tree by the lake loaded with plums. It had already been there when Matt was a child so that's pretty cool. We filled our bags with vitamins for the road and carried on.
Scenic photo stop with view over Lake Tarawera and the Mountain.
In Rotorua we went to the Redwood Forest where I haven't been before. Matt recalls there being a Flying Fox and we drove everywhere to find it. But it seems to have closed down as there was no sign of it anywhere:-( So I hugged the trees instead *lol*
However, after waking up this morning somehow Matt had decided to instead of going fishing as usual he finally wanted to see Te Papa, New Zealand's National Museum in Wellington. We'd been talking about this a few times over the last couple of weeks and now with both of us having some time off seemed to be the perfect timing. So we added a few things to our bags, stuffed a matress in the back of our truck and off we went. ROAD trip *woohoo*
Since Wellington is quite a way away from Whangarei we decided to do a few stops in between.First we headed down to Rotorua and Matt showed me around the areas he grew up in. Our first main stop was Lake Tarawera just outside Rotorua.
I have been to Lake Tarawera before when I travelled the North Island in 2011 with Johanna, a Swiss Au Pair, and some Couchsurfers we had picked up in Auckland. Matt knows heaps about the area, though, so I got to see ancient Maori Rock Carvings and we found a tree by the lake loaded with plums. It had already been there when Matt was a child so that's pretty cool. We filled our bags with vitamins for the road and carried on.
In Rotorua we went to the Redwood Forest where I haven't been before. Matt recalls there being a Flying Fox and we drove everywhere to find it. But it seems to have closed down as there was no sign of it anywhere:-( So I hugged the trees instead *lol*
We kept driving until dark and found a lovely picnic site right on the shores of Lake Taupo. Fell asleep to the sound of the waves. Lovely :-)
Here's our album with heaps of pictures from the trip...
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