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City of arrival
Auckland! The biggest NZ city, although it is not the capital, Wellington. The first day, we enjoyed a walk around the city and booked our transport for the coming weeks
Instead of renting a car, we decided to take a bus pass allowing us to hop on and hop off at different locations into the country.
In the evening we met Jonty, a UK Deloitte colleague from the J&J project
he is now working for Deloitte NZ ! Jonty, it was nice to see you again
and thank you for letting us enjoying the skyline of the city from the Deloitte tower ;-)
The second day in Auckland, we enjoyed a 3h-walk on a volcanic island located in the Auckland bay, the Rangitoto island. Le soleil était au rendez-vous and the views were great J
On Wed (17/11), we left Auckland for Rotorua stopping at different touristic spots on the way
like the Hobbiton village (for the ones who like Lord of the rings, this is a place where they recorded part of the movie), Paeroa (the city of the famous NZ drink L&P, now owned by The Coca Cola Company)
We spent the night in Rotorua, a geothermal city where you can admire a natural hot water pool! Water is bowling at about 100 degrees in the middle of the city! Really impressive
This kind of place definitely reminds you that you are on a volcanic island!
On Thursday, we left Rotorua for Taupo
well known for its famous lake, Lake Taupo! On the way we stopped at the famous geothermal park
Wai-O-Tapu
AMAZING!! We could admire the following weird phenomenons: a geyser erupting at 10:15 AM every day, boiling mud pools, a hot lake known as the Champagne pool,
We spent the afternoon and evening in Taupo.
PS on the above paragraph
before Marjan explains it
I prefer to let you know that indeed I thought I could have a swim in the geothermal pools
so I was wearing (optimistically) my swimming gear to visit the site
but after looking at the board (see picture) telling us that the temperature was about 100 degrees in the pools
I quickly understood, it will not be the case L
The day after we left Taupo to go to the National park in order to do the famous Tongariro Alpine Crossing, the best one-day walk in NZ! This is where things are getting wrong
When we arrived in the park, we heard that there was a high chance of rain for the next day
We tried to remain positive and woke up at 6AM as foreseen but while looking through the window, we quickly understood that the walk will not happen due to the atmospheric conditions!!!! You could not see at more than 50 meters away
So we decided to quickly change our plans as the bus for our next stop (Wellington) was leaving 30 minutes later
We were lucky and got two seats on the bus!
We are currently enjoying a few days in Wellington, the capital of NZ. Today, we visited the Te Papa museum explaining NZ history but also presenting different exhibitions such as earthquakes, Maori culture, the biggest squid,
The city is rather small for a capital but we have to remember that New Zealand counts only 4,5 mio inhabitants.
On Tuesday, we are taking the ferry to the South island where we hope the weather will be good
Still a lot of amazing things to see in the coming weeks! We will keep you posted ;-)
21-11-2010 om 10:19
geschreven door Marjan & Isa 
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