New Zealand TrUp- December 2009

We've really wanted to get to New Zealand for a while now (but Fiji and Bali won out the last two times because of the price!). Lucky for us, we found a great seat sale in the spring and decided to book a short holiday to New Zealand with our friends (Heather and Mark Gleba) for the end of the year.

We only had 5 days there, so we decided to tour the North Island only. (We figure we’ll have to go back to the south island since it looks like you’d need about 10-14 days to do it properly.)
The trip was amazing, and I can probably say that New Zealand is my new favourite place in the world. The scenery was incredible, the people were so nice, the weather was perfect and it even felt a bit like Canada.
We spent our first day there traveling down from Auckland to the centre of the north island to a small town called Lake Taupo. We checked into our hotel, grabbed some fish and chips at a local hole in the wall and spent the evening by the lake eating fish and chips and drinking New Zealand beer.
The next day we found a local Kiwi to take us out on his sailboat around the lake- he called himself Barnacle Bill. It was a great way to learn about the town and see the area and Bill was a hilarious tour guide.
Brent- swimming in Lake Taupo

Next we headed north to Rotarua (also known as Rota-sua, since the whole town smelled of sulfur). We stayed at a hostel there which had a private hot spring attached to it and we spent a lot of time hanging out there listening to the hilarious Kiwi accents.
The highlight of Rotarua was definitely the River Rats white water rafting! We decided to do the Level 5 rapids which meant we rafted down the highest commercially rafted fall in the world. It was a 7 meter drop! We had such a great time on the tour that we instantly signed up for a second trip (for half price) and went down the same river a second time!
This is our boat at the bottom of the 7m drop

We also visited the Hell’s Gate geothermal park while we were in Rotarua. The park was huge, and we ended the tour with a mud bath and sulfur spa. Heather and I were regretting staying in the sulfur spa for so long since our hair smelled of sulfur for almost a week afterwards.
Next we headed west to the Waitomo Caves to see the famous New Zealand glow worms. We chose a ‘blackwater rafting’ cave tour which meant we were caving, walking through underground rivers, and riding inner tubes underground. There were some tight squeezes and some fast-flowing water, but it was a great tour and the glow worms were just awesome.
After the caves we headed back to Auckland and spent the rest of our time there. We met up with a friend of mine from McGill Swimming (Dave Vernon) who lives and works in Auckland now, had dinner at the harbour and spent some time exploring the city.
It was a great trip, and we really can’t wait to go back! Maybe even to work one day?!