First time zone to ring in 2023,happy new year everyone! 🎉🍾❤️😎

Spent the day driving inland up to the mountains (which are all active volcanos in this region). Breathtaking views, and it’s nice to get some cooler weather.

Stopped to check out a logging/timber museum that preserved an old logging camp/town from the early 1900s

Saw this blast from the past and stopped to buy a few essentials

Stopped in the lake town of Taupo on the way for lunch. Tried our hand at attempting to make a hole-in-one on the floating platform

On the way into Ohukane we finally got good looks at the active volcanos pumping out steam and gasses. The views here are unbelievably beautiful.

Back at the hotel to ring in the new year!

Off to bed so we can get up for our kayak adventure tomorrow. Happy New Years everyone, love you all!!

Before hitting the road we stopped again for a breakfast of savory pies and a tostie sandwich. I really wish these pies would catch on at home!

Got a room for the night in the costal city of Tarunaga as it was close to the tour we booked for the evening. Had to wait to check in so we walked around town for a bit, and decided to grab a snack and beer, and ended up getting to watch a classic car parade cruise by. Kinda weird seeing classics with the steering wheel on the right, but some of them still had the wheel on the left.

Checked into our room with a view and hit the pool for a bit, which was really needed on this very hot day.

Close to sunset we drove to start our night kayak tour to see New Zealand’s famous Glow Worms. We kayaked into a dark gorge with high walls on each side and the cliff walls were covered in them and it looked magical like someone had hung Christmas lights through the canyon. Pics don’t do it justice so here’s a similar video.

Our tour ended late after 11pm, and we were ready for some food, but the only thing open was trusty ole McDonald’s so that’s our snack for the evening. Since it was the only thing open in town with food, we had to wait about 40 minutes in line because a big music festival had just finished as well, but it was worth it. Learned a lesson though that New Zealand MCDs are sadist that don’t put salt on their fries or even provided ketchup! 💀💀😬😬 Luckily we were able to get some from our hotel, but I don’t understand how people choke down plain fries. (all other restaurants the fries are seasoned).

Next is a four hour road trip to the mountains for a few days. Staying in the town of Ohakune, and will be spending New Years Day adventuring in Whanganui National Park. We were lucky to get spots on the tour as it was full, but we’d been on the wait list for a couple of days and some people dropped out.

Onedayer Adventure

Thanks for tuning in, our next post will be in 2023. Fun fact, New Zealand is the first major country to ring in the new year (behind a couple of small island nations like Kiribati). Stay tuned ♥️🎉🍾😎

Used today for a down day to relax and do some planning for the next four days, and we now have an itinerary loosely planned out. Once that was settled we walked to a local restaurant for breakfast (sorry forgot a pic), and hit the road to cruise and hit some sights and short hikes.

First stop was a short hike to view and cross the Arapuni Suspension Bridge, although it’s described as a suspension bridge, it’s more of a swinging bridge that thrilling sways and shakes with footsteps and the wind as you look down on the turbulent river far below. It was built for the construction workers to access the site when building the hydro-power station below. Once across the bridge, we could see an old steep discontinued staircase that led workers down the gorge bottom below.

We next drove around for quite a while looking for our next stop which was supposed to be a boardwalk through wetlands, but never did find it. Not sure if it’s been closed, or our spotty internet connection was to blame, so we headed instead to Putaruru Blue Springs, which supposedly is the source for 70% of New Zealands bottled water. We opted to skip the long trai, and parked near the end for a short jaunt. It wasn’t anything exciting, not blue, just a crowded path along a clear river.

More leisurely driving through the beautiful grazing lands, farms, and countryside these led us to the lookout for Wairere Falls, a stunning 500 foot waterfall, and the biggest on NZ’s north island. You can hike up it if you want, but its a long hike and it was getting late in the day.

Doing a few short hikes, and cruising around sightseeing works up an appetite so we headed back to Matamata for dinner. A day ofseeing thousands of heads of cows and sheep grazing on the rolling hillsides definitely inspired dinner.

Only managed a few bites of tonight’s wacky snack(I’ll let the pic do all the talking) , but we’ll polish them off in the car tomorrow as we pack up and head to the costal city of Tauranga next. Tomorrow evening we’ve booked a canoe trip to see NZ’s famous night glow worms. Thanks again for tuning in!

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Yayyy, we checked out of the Auckland hotel this morning, picked up our 4×4 truck, and headed south. This country is absolutely stunning! We landed in the small town of Matamata, checked into the new place, and headed out to join our tour of the Lord of the Rings movie set for Hobbiton & The Shire.

Before I bombard the post with all the tour pics, here’s the ones from the rest of the day.

Trucking on the left side of the road again is always fun, especially since the wiper switch and turn signal switch are reversed. Lots of accidental wiper action today.

Random weird sight on our 2.5 hour drive.

Happily everything is open in Matamata, and we were able to get a really good steak dinner tonight.

Tonight’s wacky snack was spicy hot Pringle, but keep scrolling for a photo dump of our movie set tour today.

OK, to the important things. If you’re even a bit of a fan of Lord of the Rings books and movies, you would LOVE to tour the movie set where they filmed scenes for Hobbiton, the Shire, Bag End, and the Green Dragon Inn. We’re not super fans at all, but it was really really neat! These pics don’t do justice to the absolute beauty of the countryside out here, or the details of the set.

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more updates tomorrow.❤️

Had a great day today, slept in a bit then headed out for some food. Finally found a bakery with some delicious meat pies and split three of em. Steak n Mushrooms, Steak n Mashed Potatoes, and Eggs Ham n Cheese.

To work off all the food we took a good walk uphill to Albert Park to check out the sculptures and fountains.

Enough of the nature, it was time for some history! We headed to the Auckland War Memorial Museum, but don’t let the name fool ya, it was mostly a really neat Natural History & Polynesian History museum with the top floor dedicated to the war history.

Post museum we took another long walk to check out the surrounding area, as the museum is in the middle of a large park built in and around an old volcano crater, Auckland Domain, with a lot of other things to see and trails to walk.

As we had enough of the hiking, we found a “tiki bar” to have a drink n snacks. It wasn’t as near as good as home, but the margarita helped our tired feet feel better.

When I mentioned things are all closed here, it’s not just from the pandemic. Apparently a lot of places just close during the holidays, and this was obviously clear today. We happened upon a NZ Post-office satellite branch closed for holidays until next year! At this point we’re just laughing about the absurdity.

After a long day it’s time for bed. Tomorrow we check out of Auckland hotel, pick up our rental truck, and hit the road. We’re heading a couple hours south tomorrow to go Hobbit hunting, so stay tuned for updates! Before I snooze away, tonight’s wacky snack was “Grilled Burgers flavor Pringles”

Slept in today and planned on taking it easy. A bit of a boring update today, but heavy rains kept things low key. don’t worry though, weather is looking good after this.

Ended up walking around the waterfront for a while, and checking out all the boats and ferries and potential things to do. Then really heavy thunderstorms rolled in and we took refuge at a pub.

Once that subsided a bit, we found an outdoors store to go buy some gortex jackets. We were going to do this anyways because we can’t easily get outdoors gear on maui, but the rain prompted us to do this sooner. We found out that Boxing Day is one of the biggest shopping days in the country, and the crowds proved it. Sadly according to Wikipedia, the holiday has changed from what it was intended for “Though it originated as a holiday to give gifts to the poor, today Boxing Day is primarily known as a shopping holiday”

Putting aside my thoughts on the gross consumerism machine of the holidays, let’s move on to more fun stuff.

With the rain still pouring and the bowling alley booked up, Shawn and I went and did an escape room called “Bank Heist” at Escape Masters downtown. They locked us in a multi room simulated bank, and we had solve a bunch of clues, puzzles, and lock to break into the vault and get the gold. We managed to escape with two minutes left, and was the first two person team to beat the game this month and ended up in 10th place. Not bad considering most teams had 5-7 players.

Dinner was at an Irish pub with some burgers, then back to the room to wind down early with a snack. Tonight’s random snack was “Sizzling BBQ chips” Made by Lay’s, they resembled Pringles but with a tray inside the tube. (the tray didn’t help, chips were still broken, lol)

Am kinda disappointed in the lack of original local food here, weirdly there are SO MANY places that just serve burgers, hotdogs, and pizza! Even the fast food chains are American based (taco bell, pizza hut, Dennys?!?!) Like most places in the world, the pandemic has changed things, so there’s less variety available than before. I hear this improves out of the city, so we’re looking forward to that.

Tomorrow we’re going to the museum, and may do another escape room in the evening.

Thanks for tuning in, and keep checking back for more updates. 😎❤️

merry xmas in the USA, and happy Boxing Day in New Zealand!

we took off from Honolulu at 1:30 pm on the 24th, nine hour direct flight, got to hotel at 11:30pm on December 25th.

with international date line, we only had 30mins of xmas this year, then bars and restaurants opened at midnight. so we were able to go to the casino and grab a beer and some food after we checked in.

interestingly while going through customs at the airport, NZ gave every person a four pack of covid tests to take with them and instructions on how to get medical attention if you are sick. plus everywhere has free hand sanitizer for customers to use, including the little corner markets.

however, when we fly home, we’ll actually get home before we left (date and time wise)

enjoying some coffee on our hotel patio this morning then going to explore Auckland. So far we’ve tried fried chicken flavored Pringles. Yummy!

stay tuned for further adventures!! ♥️