Christmas Vacation Part II - Driving Around

... And we're back!  We are all moved into our new place. We don't have plates or forks or a bed or anywhere to put our things, but we do have Internet - priorities!!

Now back to our regularly scheduled Christmas Vacation photo essay.

After the ladies left, we got in the car and started to drive.  And man oh man did we drive. We didn't think to check the odometer before leaving, but the two furthest points on our trip - Auckland and Wellington - are 650km apart, and we took lots and lots of detours as we wound our way down over a week and a half.

By "we drove" I mean Rob drove - obviously I was knitting

Our first stop was Tongariro National Park, where our 3-day/2-night hike was cancelled due to rain and wind. We went down thinking it would be okay, but the park ranger told us, "you can try, but you might not make it." I'm not sure what he meant by that or why he said it so casually, but we appreciated his honesty.

After our trek was canceled, we followed the sun to Hawke's Bay, which is another one of New Zealand's famous wine regions (known for its Pinot Noir and Chardonnay) and camped and did a wine tour there. Then we went up to Lake Taupo for a couple nights where we went white water rafting and rung in 2014. We celebrated our new year's day tradition of spending the entire day in bed watching an entire season of a TV show (Season 4 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) before heading up to Rotorua to try zorbing and lugeing. Zorbing was just okay, but I am already planning my next lugeing trip - it's like real life Mario Kart!

Top: Downtown Hastings (a town in Hawke's Bay); Bottom: fun on our wine tour

Top: Some people had entire set-ups and stayed the whole week; Bottom: We were not those people

White water rafting - complete with jumping off a waterfall into 50* water!

New Year's Eve in Taupo. The McDonald's has a plane because of course it does. 

How convenient that there was a Woolen Mill right next door to the Zorbing place in Rotorua.

From top left: the gondola to take you up to the lugeing area; luge guidelines; the truest words ever printed on a helmet - once is not enough and we'll be back next month to try night lugeing!

Watch out for turtle shells and banana peels!