Lake Taupo by Noreen

After a week of preparation we were finally on our way South! We outfitted the caravan (pull-behind trailer) and pulled out a 4:00 pm Friday, our one week mark of being in New Zealand. We stayed at a wonderful campsite in Taupo that night and went to the mineral hot springs in the morning. It consisted of many different swimming pools heated naturally. School was still in session in NZ so we had the entire resort to ourselves and had a blast. We pulled out about 11:00 and drove around the outer perimeter of Lake Taupo on our way south. The small slice of the lake that we saw on our last trip here (Steve and I vacationed in NZ in 2004 with my side of the family) was nothing compared to the beauty of driving around it! About twenty minutes into the drive Steve said, "Alright, I can't stand it anymore!" and pulled over to the side of the road to explore. It was just too beautiful to drive by with out stopping. Daniel immediately ran down to the shore and started throwing rocks in. He about fainted when the volcanic rocks (pumice) floated back to him! After exploring for awhile, we piled back in the van and headed straight for the southern tip of the North Island.

It may be because we had already celebrated Christmas with our extended family, but it was easy to forget for days at a time that it was almost Christmas. It is not nearly so commercialized NZ and of course the warm weather fools you. About the only time you run into it is at the grocery store were they have American Christmas songs blaring over the speakers and 4 foot Santas boogieing to Jingle bell rock. It all seemed so out of place. Sometimes we forgot the date entirely. On Sunday we found some amazing new birds and Whitney was marking them in our bird book. She asked Steve what the date was and he looked at his watch and told her December 17th. We both looked at each other and laughed and hugged and I got teary eyed. It was our 14th Anniversary and we almost missed it!

The next morning (Monday) we pulled out of camp at 4:45 am to catch the 6:00 am a ferry to the South Island. We drove the van and caravan right onto the boat! A couple of hours later we arrived and started our adventure around the South Island!