Subject: January 1: North Island roadtrip begins
Date Sent: Sun, January 3, 2010 2:31:03 PM ("home time")
Howdy,
I see the last email I sent was from Auckland airport... now I'm back home and according to my clock I won't be sending that email for another 4 1/2 hours! :) The world is becoming a small place... right now is the second time I'm going through "Sunday".
I started driving from Auckland at 11am without knowing where I wanted to go, just that I had to "somehow" end up in the town of Rotorua for the night. I hadn't had much sleep the previous night and was still recovering from my cold so I was tired. As it turned out I drove straight to Rotorua and didn't do anything else. On the way there is a town called Matamata, which is where the "Hobbiton" town in Lord Of The Rings movie was filmed. I was considering stopping there to go see it, but then remembered that I really don't like those movies anyway, and the brochure I had of the town said that there is a tour which takes 1.5 hours. That was too long for me, so I continued driving and ended up in Rotorua.
Rotorua is situated near some active volcanos, and there are a lot of volcano-related activities there, like skydiving. No, that's not right... like swimming in thermal pools or hiking along the rim. I did not do any of those activities. The rest of the day (after about 3pm when I arrived there) was spent sleeping/resting in my room. There might have been a little bit of "depression over leaving South Island" factor at work too. But really, that was the end of the day... The scenery in the North Island is nowhere near as beautiful as in the South Island. The feeling was almost as if I were coming home...
The next day would be almost the same!
|
|
|
| Dec 31 | Contents | Jan 2 |