Friday 22 March 2013

Rotorua Road Trip!


A crisp beautiful foggy morning drive in rural Auckland
 {WARNING! Heaps of awesome photo's}

Kia Ora everyone!

Last month, my partner  Andrei and I decided to do a little something different for a date day and head on a 2.5hour drive down to Rotorua instead of sitting for 2.5hours in a movie theatre as it seems to be what we would normally do.

So without further adieu, here's the story :-)

Half way there! We left at 6am and made it there by 9am.

Starting the day off on the luge! It was so much fun, all you could hear was us screaming down the hill with laughter :-)
It was a little pricey but it was so worth it!

Gorge view of Rotorua on the gondolas
Up really high on the lift taking us back up the hill from the luge.

I just remembered what the trip was for!
Once a year, like how the American's have the 4th of July, Kiwi's have Waitangi Day which celebrates the British (NZ Euro) and Maori people coming together as one and sharing the land and what the country has to offer with eachother.
In other words, a peace treaty was signed.
So everyone in the country is entitled to a day off and the night before Andrei and I thought of what we could do to spend the day.
Like I said above, seeing a movie was out of the question and after being together for nearly 6years you need to change it up a wee bit; and we've been wanting to go to Rotorua for a long time so we booked in a sulphur spa at Hells Gate Geothermal Park, got our things together so we could head off early and kind of went from there!

Here's our experience of the famous Hells Gate :-)

Entry to Hells Gate :-)

Cute pic of Andrei as we start the one hour walk around the thermal park
Wouldn't mind having a soak in that if only it wasn't 70degrees!
Devil's Bath, very appropriate name.




boiling mud pools

Beautiful thermal waterfall
Story of the waterfall.
Not a cloud in the sky!

Beautiful walk ways made for a nice walk around the park

The steaming cliffs were impressive!

close up of a mud pool

dipping our feet in the mud pool after the walk, it was absolute heaven!


Had a good 40min soak in the 40degree Sulphur Spa. Came out feeling so amazing and refreshed, will definitely have to make another visit and try the Mud Bath!

Almost time to leave, had lunch on the boardwalk.

Beautiful view of Lake Rotorua. They also had little pedal boats which you could ride on in the lake.
That'll be for another time.
So the whole visit was worth the while.
We both had so much fun doing the touristy kind of things and plus just having quality time together :-)

There is still so much to do in Rotorua such as the zorb, Paradise Valley Springs, the River Jet etc which you can check out on the tourist website here.
So if you haven't been to Rotorua or even to New Zealand it is definitely worth the trip!

The drive from Auckland to get there is exquisite and it's a friendly community. Just make sure you have enough to do the activities you want!

That's all from me for today peep's. You'll hear from me soon!

XOXOX