Cultural Day in Rotorua, New Zealand

We made the two hour drive from Waitomo to Rotorua late in the morning. The drive was beautiful. Rolling hills, sheep, puffy clouds, and perfect weather. 

We stopped briefly in a town called Tirau for lunch. It was so small If we blinked we would have missed it. For whatever reason everything in this tiny town was made of corrugated metal...and i mean EVERYTHING! 

We got to Rotorua and checked into the Princes Gate Hotel. The guy in the lobby told us that sometime in the 1920s, they picked this hotel up and moved it 93 miles! Can you imagine?!?

The place was built in 1897 and has a delightful antique decor with all the rooms named after important Rotoruans. We are in the Don Stafford room who was apparently the town historian.

Today we spent the day learning about Maori culture. We started at the Rotorua Museum which is housed in an old bath house.

Back in the day people used to come here from all over for "the cure" to their ailments. The water from the stinky springs is said to have healing properties. Maybe so...if you could get past the fact that it smells like a rotten egg.

Oh, did i forget to mention, the whole town stinks of rotten eggs? An unfortunate side effect of being situated on top of a bunch of very sulphuric geothermic springs. You get used to it though.

Inside the museum was a wing dedicated to Maori history which was fascinating but we couldn't take any pictures. 

There was also a cool exhibit about rugby players who had to go off to WWI

And a tea towel collection from a famous chef. 

We dug this place. It was the perfect way to orient ourselves with the local culture.

Next we went to a traditional Maori Village called Tamaki for dinner and a cultural show. It would be the NZ equivalent of a luau.

We learned about their music, weaving, tattoos, battle training, and they even showed Helmut how to do the Haka!

Then they showed us how the Haka is REALLY done. These guys don't mess around!

Then we ate some food they prepared in the ground in a traditional hangi. It was a bit touristy but since we had no way to experience such things otherwise, we didn't mind. They did a good job of explaining Maori culture and the food was decent.

We have  one more day here and were gonna make the most of it! Lots of interesting pictures should be coming up!

Raglan, New Zealand

We flew to Auckland from Queenstown, rented a car, and headed south to Raglan

Raglan is a beautiful sleepy little town as well as a world class surf spot. 

This place was called "local eatery". How original!

Helmut couldn't resist...he had to surf the famous Manu Bay, even though the waves weren't great...

This was the view from our balcony in Whale Bay...

We stayed at a really cool Airbnb place that was perfect!

We celebrated our one week anniversary by barbequing our own lamb...

The scenery was stunning. Everywhere we looked was picture-worthy...

Raglan was quaint and memorable. We were only there two days but vowed to come back someday!

Wine Tasting in Gibbeston Valley

Yesterday we went to the Gibbeston Valley to taste their delightful wine. 

We stopped at two wineries, Amisfield and Mt Rosa. 

Amisfield isn't quite in the Gibbeston Valley but closer to Arrowtown, about 15 miles northeast of Queenstown (Gibbeston Valley is only 22 so it's all close). 

Both areas are beautiful, especially this time of year (autumn). 

 

Those are the grape vines in the foreground.

We both liked the wine at Amisfield better  and their food was delicious. Mt Rosa was very friendly and they were very informative; showing us how they measured the sugar content of the grapes. They also had a delicious mulled wine but it's a holiday thing and we were hesitant to try to get it back home on the plane.

We stopped in Arrowtown on the way home which is an old mining town and reminded us of Julian.

The trees that coated the hillside in the distance were colorful and picturesque. Like a painting!

In the evening, we returned to our Air BNB accomodations for our final night in Queenstown.

We feel like we made the most of our time here and will definitely return to this "adventure capital of the world"!

Jetboat ride and Canyon Swing Queenstown, New Zealand

Today was off the charts! We went on the Shotover Jet Boat ride and chased it with  the Canyon Swing over the Shotover River. We have some still photos and will follow up with the videos when we get back to SoCal.

The Jet Boat had 700hp with twin 350 Chevy motors and this mother hauled. The jet boat ride is 25 minutes long. We donned our waterproof, knee length jackets with a dozen or so others and  climbed into the fire breathing machine. We proceeded down the narrow, winding river with rock canyon walls and as little as 6" of water below our boat. The driver would punch it and get the boat up to 85km/hr while coming ever so close the rock walls. Sometimes dude would casually put his right index finger into the air and rotate it in a little warning circle. This meant we were within a few seconds of doing a 360. We did this about 15 times. Our kinda fun.

The next thing we had planned right after the boat dealio was the canyon swing. If you enjoy free falling for 60 meters while going 150km/hr, we highly recommend this activity. 

This is considered to be the world's highest cliff jump. It was 109 meters high and you swing over the river for 200 meters. 

Someone said, "Even Chuck Norris would be scared". The couple before us got all harnessed up, proceeded to the edge and took forever to go. We started to see the boyfriend was panicking. His girl was game, they were harnessed together, he was super nervous. One of the operators said the guy will go, people do this, it's normal. He said one person a month gets to the edge and chickens out. Well, today was that day. Ya know when you try to give your dog a bath or stick the cat in the carrier? Ya know...the feet claw into anything to stop them from the doom of the shower or the cat carrier? This dude was doing the same thing. It was getting dramatic in quick order as the operators had he and his girlfriend shimmy on their backsides to the edge.  We had our popcorn popped and were tuned into the high drama. The crescendo was about to unfold. The couple was now going into the final stage which is to leave the safety of the metal platform to dangle right next to it before they are cut loose. This was where his left foot had to finally release it's deathgrip on the metal railing. At this point they are dangling, he realizes that they are dangling and now starts shouting uncontrollably at the operators to "get me the f@#k back!" several times. As they and his girlfriend tried to calm him down, "get me the f@#k backs" got more desparate, the volume raised. The meltdown lasted for 20 seconds or so until they reeled the two back to safety. Now you have some context. The soon to be posted video is nuts.
In the mean time, here is a shot of the kid who went right after us just after they pushed him off the ledge: