Rotorua

After our night in Kaikoura, we headed out early to catch a ferry from Picton to Wellington to start our north island trek. Our plan was to do the south island first but the buses were all booked for a week so we decided to go north instead. Supposedly the south island is more scenic, we'll see!

We took a four hour ferry across to the north island and landed in Wellington. Unfortunately karina had a little run in with a pole in the ground while waiting for the ferry and managed to escape with only a bruised foot (not very common- have you ever seen a bruised foot?! Only I could manage that...). Her Toms shoes however were not so lucky...looks like more sewing for me! We stayed at Nomads hostel in Wellington and were greeted with free shots of something tropical and a free BBQ in honor of their beach party (except theres no beach in wellington?!), always a great way to start a trip! We had a nice four person dorm with one queen sized bed that yours truly got to sleep in :)

Unfortunately we got there late and left early so we did not get to see much of Wellington during the day but we're stopping back here next week and will check the city out then!

To start our night in Wellington, we hung out with some people on our bus at the Nomads bar and then wandered around to a few different bars in the city with Finland, Holland and England. Unfortunately Wellington is not a very happening place on a Wednesday before easter night so we called it quits pretty early. But on the bright side England was a huge patriots fan!! He joined in on our pain with the superbowl ("it ruined my Monday!!") and has tickets to go see them when they play in London this summer, pretty sweet!

The next morning we were up early and drove up to a town called Rotorua, which is known for its hot springs and naturally occurring mud baths. On the way we stopped in a town called Bulls...were slowly learning that when people tell us oh its a great city check it out! They really mean its a small town with a bakery, McD's, post office and bank and has about 2,000 permanent residents.

We also stopped at a river/gorge (what's the difference btwn a gorge and a waterfall? Being around all these Europeans who learn British English has really made me question the definition of a lot of English words!) on the Waikano River called Spa Park. So cool! At the mouth of the gorge, boiling hot water flowed down and at the bottom it mixed with cooler water. Something about hot plates under the earth in certain spots makes it hot and bubble. If you stand in certain spots half of you is swimming in hot water and the other half is in cold water. Or you can sit in the waterfall and make it a jacuzzi. Pretty sweet. We enjoyed some proper NZ beer called Speights while we soaked in the hot springs. Not bad for a Thursday :)

Note about beer: in new Zealand the only license they accept is a NZ one or a passport. So as Alexa and I waited in line to buy beer they asked for a passport. Mine was with me but Alexa's was safely in her backpack so I thought ok I'll just buy it. But I couldn't buy it since she was with me! So we secretly found a friend from the bus who had his passport on him and had him buy us our beer while we waited outside. Keep in mind drinking age here is 18. So we felt like 17 year old rebels breaking the law!! Oh to be young again...

We also drove by Lake Taupo on the way...it's huge! I thought it was the ocean but that didn't make sense...biggest lake I've ever seen. A lot of people go skydiving here...supposedly it's the best/most scenic place in the world to dive.

When we finally reached Rotorua several hours later, we were greeted by a pungent smell of sulphur...aka rotten eggs. The whole town reeks from the sulphur that spews from the volcanoes that surround the town. Oh yeah, there are volcanoes all over this country!

Unfortunately we got there too late to see the bubbling mud, maybe on our road trip next week!

We stayed at Base hostel and hung out at Lava Bar, which was attached to Base. This country is funny, they're very free spirited and carefree, but when it comes to religious holidays, everything shuts down. We were in Rotorua on a Thursday and we had to stock up on food and supplies because nearly everything in the whole country shuts down on Good Friday. Lava Bar usually closes at 2am or whatever but because it was good Friday at midnight they had to close early. The bars closed at midnight and wouldn't open till 1201 am the next day so it's officially sat!

But hey no problems...just means we got to go to bed earlier, these 7am bus departures are killing us!

Another note about beer: it's great to be surrounded by all these Europeans. When they get tired/ drunk they tend to revert to their original languages. So we fell asleep to a Finnish talking to a German who responded in German (neither could understand each other) throw in some Dutch, Danish and our English and it was a great fun convo in which nobody was really understanding each other but it didn't really matter!