Hollin: Tauranga/Bay of Plenty/Taupo Road Trip

Another great weekend in Aotearoa!

We woke up really early on Friday morning and drove in Baby (Anais and Lena's new van, their baby) and got to the airport to catch our 8 o'clock flight into Tauranga. It was rainy and the forecast read: Rainy (crap weather or the weather's crap, as the Kiwi's like to call it). This time the weathermen were right. It pretty much rained the whole time, but we made the best of it and had a pretty wicked time. When we got to Tauranga we picked up our rental which was an advanced version of my cranberry toyota. We drove into town and decided to climb Mt. Manganui first. It was a little cloudy out, but the views were awesome and there was wind that really made you feel like the earth has all the power. It was pretty cool, but a little bit scary around the cliff areas. There was one steep part we actually tried to climb up, but we all got blown over with the first minute and turned around to the road most travelled by.

After this (it was still really early) we drove further North along the Bay of Plenty, headed towards Hot Water Beach. This was by far one of the coolest things I've ever done. We get there and are all totally skeptacle about getting into our togs (suits) because it is just freezing and windy, but then once we saw a girl running by in her bikini and stuck our toesies into the melting hot water, we ran back and changed immediately. I don't know if there are other beaches like this in the world, but I've never heard of one. Under the sand is a lot of geothermal activity that heats up the water that runs beneith the surface, creating steaming hot natural hot tubs on the beach. There were a few other people there and the cutest little family with two naked little babies playing in the water happily. We lounged around for what turned out to be about two hours. It was the most perfect thing: an un-developed hot tub in the sand looking towards the ocean and beautiful islands. We just loved it and couldn't stop raving about it.

After this we drove back through the winding hills towards Tauranga and stayed at a pretty cool lodge. We were all exhausted and made the best tacos ever. Mmmm. We woke up early the next day to pretty much a downpour. A little downtrodden, we decided we wanted to hike to the Wharere falls anyway. Once we got there, there were all these signs saying take all your belongings with you because there were a lot of robbers who stole things out of cars. A little upset by the prospect, we got out of the car and there was a truck with the license plate "BRGLAR" right across from us. We got a pretty good laugh out of that and then stuffed our pockets with everything we held dear. Through the downpour we met up with the raging river and traveled through the thick forest. About ten minutes from the falls, the trail was under water. We tried to climb up around it, getting totally muddy, but we all felt a little unsafe about the rising water levels and decided it wasn't our day for it. Maybe I'll get back there, but it was definitely a fun hike to see the water so turbulent!

We made our way down South hitting Rotorua again and checking out some of the hot springs. We then ate at the Fat Dog Cafe which was really cute (Emma you would have loved this place, I wish I had gotten a picture...there were dog poems and quotes everywhere and just really witty stuff!). We then drove down to Taupo where we crossed our fingers we would be able to enjoy the next day. We spent the evening in this awesome hostel called the Rainbow lodge. It was the most fun one I've been in so far because there were just so many young travelers eating and reading and talking together. We met a few funny characters (a hilarious scottish lad) and enjoyed our breakfast for dinner cooking time! The next morning we woke up and had planned to go skydiving, but the weather was too bad and the company didn't even call us to confirm the cancellation it was so cruddy. We made our way through Taupo and had a really nice breakfast and then went to a bay that would have been gorgeous if we could see into the fog. We also drove to Huka Falls which were crystal blue even in the rainy weather and Craters of the Moon which was just an area with really high amounts of geothermal activity. It was really cool and the colors of the clay there was pretty intense. I loved that (even though we got soaked again!).

We finally admitted defeat with the weather and made our way back to Wellington. As we were approaching home the sun started to grace us with it's presence and decided to shine, shine, shine! We knew that we were right by the water by that point and desperately searched for the closest beach so that we could watch this incredible sunset! Once we found one, we were like bats out of hell (as Grandpa might say). We ran as fast as we could out of the car flinging off our shoes into the sunset. It was absolutely breathtaking, stunning, incredible, magnificent...all those words combined! It was the perfect, non-planned icing on the salty cake (because there was so much rain...and i think rain would taste salty?)!

Turns out that no matter the weather, you can still have an amazing time being with wonderful people and exploring wonderful places. I loved this trip=)

Now for some pictures...

Bottom of Mt. Manganui with heaps of sheep!