Day 50 - Rotorua

 

We drove down to Rotorua today, about 250km south of Auckland. We've been waiting to see some of the much joked about sheep, but despite driving past many paddocks, all we saw were dairy cows everywhere!!

We did surprisingly well without a GPS, making it all the way to the street our hotel is on with just the map and no wrong turns along the way!!

The first thing that we saw when we arrived in town were the geizers all over the place. They have made little parks and gardens around them and even have some communal foot pools where the naturally hot 40 degree water comes up through the ground into some foot pools.



The first thing that we smelt when we arrived in town was the stench from the 'rotten egg gas' - sulphur from the geizers all around town. The smell was so strong that I was literally gagging when I breathed through my nose. It's actually quite hard to avoid breathing through your nose and only breathe through your mouth constantly!!



This afternoon we took a gondola ride up the mountain on the Skylines Skyride. When we arrived in town it was overcast and a freezing 11 degrees (at 2pm in the afternoon) but by the time we got to the top of the mountain the sun had come out and warmed things up to 15 degrees....







At the top of the mountain they have 3 luge tracks, including a 2km track, that take you on a great luge track back down the mountain. Ryan and I had a copuple of turns. It took about 5 minutes to get to the bottom and then we came back up again on a chair lift. While we enjoyed the luge ride in Coffs Harbour, this one was significantly better (and longer and faster). And the best part of it is that the smell isn't up here!!





Accommodation - Silver Oaks Heritage Resort

Rest Stops - Hamilton

Quiz Question - Which is the smallest coin denomination in the New Zealand currency (in bith size and value)?

 

*Quiz Answers - Week 6*

 
Quiz Question #43 – How much food do penguins eat each day as a proportion of their body weight e.g. 2% of their body weight each day (that’s not the answer)?

Answer #43 – Penguins can eat up to 25% of their body weight each day!!

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Quiz Question #44 – How many teeth do dolphins have?

Answer #44 - Dolphins have over a hundred teeth (all the better to eat you with!!).

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Quiz Question #45 – How much would you be fined if you fed a wild dolphin while out fishing in Queensland (to the nearest thousand)?

Answer #45 – You would be fined ten thousand dollars if you fed a wild dolphin while out fishing in Queensland. And so you bloody well should be – this can lead to dependency or even the death of the dolphin!

* * * * * *

Quiz Question #46 – What did we have for breakfast this morning?

Answer #46 – That’s an easy one - fresh banana pancakes with strawberries and cream!!

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Quiz Question #47 – What are the 6 key ingredients needed to make a banana split?

Answer #47 - The 6 key ingredients needed to make a banana split are: banana, ice cream, cream, topping, nuts and wafer.

* * * * * *

Quiz Question #48 – Where is the country music capital of Australia?

Answer #48 – Tamworth is the country music capital of Australia.

* * * * * *

Quiz Question #49 – How many named moons of Saturn are there?

Answer #49 – There are 34 named moons of Saturn.
 

Day 49 - Auckland

 

We went to the Auckland Zoo today and although we're using a paper map we didn't get lost (although we did arrive at the back entrance to the zoo rather than the front).

They have heaps of animals including: elephants, lions, tigers, cheetahs, zebras, hippos, rhinos, giraffes, flamingos, baboons, chimps, otters, lemurs, meerkats, wallabies, emus, peacocks and lots of different birds and reptiles:







Ryan really liked the tigers this time and they were coming right up to the front of the enclosure which made for some great photos:





It was funny walking through a New Zealand zoo and seeing kangaroos, emus and peacocks and it was even funnier eating lunch at Darwin's Cafe!!



Although not as good as the Western Plains Zoo in Dubbo (which is the best zoo we've been to so far) we really enjoyed the Auckland Zoo.

This afternoon we went for a walk around the city and down to the harbour. While it rained a little earlier, the sun had come out by the time we wandered around the water front and it was a lovely warm 20 degrees (the hottest it's been so far):



Accommodation - The Hotel Grand Chancellor

Quiz Question - What is the name of the well known, if not strange looking, New Zealand bird, which is also their national icon?

 

Day 48 - Auckland

 
We had an early night last night and slept for 12 hours (Ryan slept for 13 hours) - some much need sleep for all of us!!

Despite my 'triumph' at the corner store(s) last night, Kylie insisted that we needed a fourth attempt so we went searching for Woolworths. We got directions from a visitor information centre (see, I'm learning), but they call their Woolworths 'Countdown' - and they have a beer, wine a spirits aisle next to the fresh fruit!!



Other than the name and copious amounts of liquor, it's basically the same as Woolworths except they call their trolleys 'trundlers':



We went to the Auckland Sky Tower this morning and took a tour up to the top observation deck, some 220m above street level. The elevator had a glass bottom and, despite my love of big rides at the theme parks, I am not ashamed to admit that I didn't feel quite right at that height!!





This afternoon we went for a drive to Kelly Tharlton's Antarctic Adventure and Underwater World. We saw some fish, sharks, turtles and squid. However the main attraction was the penguins. They have about 80 penguins in a custom made water and ice enclosure with an enclosed kart that takes you through which is good as the enclosure is kept at a cool 1 degree!!





And of course Ryan got a penguin teddy before we left!!

In addition to the animals they also had some cool animal statues for the kids to play with:





Sorry to tease you Mum, but this is a photo of the lemon meringue pies they had at the restaurant for desert:



Accommodation - The Hotel Grand Chancellor

Quiz Question - Which is taller - the Sydney tower or the Auckland tower?
 

Day 47 - Auckland

 

A very early start to the day - 4:30am (damn those vampires, we should have gone to bed earlier than 11:30pm)....

The trip to the airport in the taxi was about 45 minutes, in the pitch black, through very long tunnels at some interesting speeds!! Uncle Adam is flying down to Hobart for a week so we shared a taxi to the domestic terminal and then we continued on another 10 minutes to the international terminal.

The international terminal is huge, with heaps of shops and lots of duty free!! Checking in was very easy as it wasn't very busy. We were in the QANTAS Club within 20 minutes of arriving. We had to show our passports three times: at check in, at immigration and at the departure gate - and that was before we even left the country!!

We had a good flight over, only 3 hours, and luckily Ryan didn't have any problems with his ears like I sometimes do, although he did try and eat one of my earplugs!! He actually slept for the last hour of the flight including the landing.

Getting out of the airport was very straight forward and quick, only about 20 minutes to collect our luggage, get through customs, immigration and biosecurity and out into the arrival hall to collect our rental car.

That's where the fun began ........ (not)!!

Just as we were leaving the airport we realised that we'd left Ryan's pram at the baggage collection. We weren't able to get back in as we'd already cleared all of the checkpoints. We went to Baggage Services who went looking for our pram. They found it but as we'd already been cleared that had to do a full security check on the pram which took about 20 minutes.

Then we went looking for our rental car. After searching for about 10 minutes (they only had about 40 cars in the lot) we finally found it at the entrance that we walked past earlier. The car is tiny compared to what we're used to. I call it our 'clown car':



Technically it is a Toyota Corolla Hatch. I had to install the baby seat as Thrifty are not legally allowed to. The "instructions" weren't really helpful.... Did I mention that Thrifty had run out of GPS units?!?! We had to use a paper map. Kylie doesn't like paper maps after the Canberra Zoo incident a few years ago....

All of the roads leading too and from the airport are motorways and I missed the exit for Auckland. There wasn't another exit for Auckland so we had top turn back to the airport to start again. It took about 3 hours to get into the CBD in the end and it should have taken half of that time!!

The only way we could tell we were in a different country while driving was the difference in speed signs and license plates - check them out:





Unfortunately the CBD has heaps of one way streets so although we found the hotel relatively easily we ended up doing 4 laps of the city just to get in!! Why does this sound like an adventure that Clarke Griswold would have in one of the Vacation movies?!?!

Once we'd settled in I headed out (on foot this time) to find a grocery store for some basics like bread and milk. One hour and three corner stores later I returned triumphant with some bread and milk....

I shall study this map tonight to ensure that we don't get lost anymore!!

Accommodation - The Hotel Grand Chancellor

Quiz Question - New Zealand is made up of two main islands - the North Island and the South Island. On which island is Auckland situated?
 

Day 46 - Sydney

 
We had a relaxing day today - playing with the puppies, watching some movies and a quick trip into Blacktown for some last minute supplies for tomorrow including vegemite (which we forgot to take on our only other trip overseas back in 2004 to Europe).

This afternoon Aunty Kate showed off her music prowess, treating us to some Guitar Hero on the PS3. She was regularly scoring around 100,000 points per song while Kylie and I could only muster around 20,000 points per song - on the easiest song on the easiest level!!



We had a fairly late night as Kylie and Kate wanted to watch New Moon - the second movie of the Twighlight Saga. Adam and I were not overly impressed with the sparkly vampires, although the werewolves were a tad better.

We went to dinner at a chinese restaurant within the Westy's League Club. The food was delicious and the service was quick and entertaining. We even had fried ice cream for desert!!

Accommodation – Uncle Adam & Aunty Kate - Kings Park

Quiz Question - What is the difference between a highway and a motorway?
 

Day 45 – Sydney

 
We went to the famous Taronga Zoo today.

We drove into the city, then caught a ferry across to the zoo and then a bus up to the entrance (we took the sky rail on the way back rather than the bus).

Of course we got to see some of the famous sights including the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House:







It was amazing to see the giraffes with the city skyline in the background:



We got to see the new baby elephant that was born a couple of weeks ago, and then Ryan insisted on sitting on the elephant statue:



He’s good at finding the animal statues – he found several others including a rhino and some fox ears:





While we were looking at the snow leopards one of them pounced down from the rocks, jumped into the pool at the front of the enclosure and grabbed a lizard that made the mistake of wandering into it’s enclosure:





It was rather hot all day, but Ryan had some fun exploring the zoo with Uncle Adam and Aunty Kate:





Quiz Question #53 – What is the nickname for the Sydney Harbour Bridge?

Accommodation – Uncle Adam & Aunty Kate - Kings Park