Tongariro and Lake Taupo

Happy Valentine's Day! It's Monday night in New Zealand and I don't have any big Valentine's plans around here so I figured I might as well update everyone on our weekend trip to Tongariro and Lake Taupo.

So here we go... the trip started Friday afternoon. We convinced our attendings to give us the afternoon off and travel which turned out to be easier than expected. Hey, it's New Zealand, they expect us to travel and see the sights. We rented a beautiful Toyota minivan, complete with the steering wheel on the right side so that we could drive on the left side of the road. You can see Ryan (Dad) driving the kids through the highways of Auckland. Mary doesn't look too scared.

And here are the kids just waiting on pins and needles to get to the hostel. (Dad, are we there yet?)
The New Zealand country side is just as beautiful as the guidebooks describe it. I'm not putting any pictures of it here because there weren't any pictures that could do it justice. If you want to see what we saw, do a google image search for New Zealand countryside.
Being the good Americans we are, there wasn't a chance on God's green earth that we weren't going to include some of America's finest dining on our way through this foreign land. Ah the glory of McDonald's...

We couldn't take the picture without the soccer mom vehicle. It's a chick magnet.
The roads wound through hills, mountains, forests, plains, and just about any other terrain you could think of. Ryan was a great driver through it all and it really wasn't too hard to adjust to driving on the left side. Below is a picture of what we found at our destination... Mount Doom.

If you've ever seen Lord of the Rings, this is the famous mountain in it. If you haven't seen the movie, let me again refer you to google images: Mount Doom. The place has an actual name but I can't remember it. In any case, this is what Ryan and the girls would hike the next day. Chase and I took the easy way out and went kayaking (more on that later).

This is our cozy little hostel. It wasn't fancy but it served its purpose.

We got into town pretty late so all we got to do Friday night was eat at a local restaurant. This is a picture of my cheeseburger with a kiwi on top. That only happens in New Zealand. And the burger was awesome. These people know how to do burgers. So that was all for Friday night. We ate, went to bed, and got ready for the next day.
They next day the girls and Ryan woke up around 6 am and got ready to go for their big hike on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. I'll have more pictures from that when I get some from Mary. Like I said before Chase and I decided to take the easy way out and went to Lake Taupo.

Mary's striking new look while getting ready for the hike. This look alone convinced Chase and myself that hiking wasn't for us (just kidding Mary... kind of)

Chase and I blew out of town like there was no tomorrow (in the Toyota van). We were free and learning to drive on the left side. Again, it was actually pretty easy even going 100 km/hr. For a conversion, my friend google tells me that is 62.137 mph. Our first stop was by a place called Lake Rotoaira. It wasn't very big but it was pretty.  

If you look to the right side, that was the back side of the mountain the others were hiking on.

And a panoramic picture of the same place
Our next stop on Saturday was Lake Taupo. We tried to take some good pictures but nothing would really show exactly what we saw so just imagine the Great Lakes surrounded by mountains. The place was actually formed by a super volcano thousands of years ago and the crater was later filled with water. It erupts every 1,000 years on average and according to our tour guide, it has been 1,800 years since the last eruption. Not really reassuring. Anyways, Chase and I decided to go to Huka falls and ride a jet boat through the river. First, here's a picture part of the falls from above.

And this is Chase on the boat, again with the peace sign. He's not being serious with it but Erin is going to kill him if he keeps doing that in every picture. Best of luck Chase.

That is Huka falls up close. I wouldn't want to be going down that on a kayak.

Me with the nice view.

And Chase trying to get both of us in the pic with the waterfalls.
After the jet boat ride, we grabbed some lunch at a local cafe and decided we didn't have enough of the water. We drove around town and found a place that did kayak tours and we signed up on the spot. And we were off down the Waikato River. The most amazing thing about the river and lake was how clear they were. You can see straight down through to the bottom. Nothing like lakes around Kansas. Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of the kayaking because water and digital cameras don't mix.

I did manage to get a picture of the hot springs we stopped at on the kayak tour. That people in the water are sitting in the area where the hot springs drain into the river and the water feels like a hot tub. Again, wish I had more pictures but I don't. We headed back out of town and back to the hostel where we found everybody sore, but in a good mood. And can you blame them, they just climbed a huge mountain. To reward their hard work, we decided to celebrate their accomplishment at another local restaurant. But before we ate, we saw these people walking down the street--

Yeah that's a guy and wife in a medieval outfit and he's definitely got a jousting lance

Chase provoked the good knight. Remember, this is rural New Zealand. Totally normal

And these are the hours of the restaurant/bar. Did I mention that these people are layed back?

I tried the Thai beef salad and was impressed. Maybe the best salad I've ever had. Also, it's the second salad I've ever had (but it really was good)

After dinner we got some wine and desert. Mary bought that cake to the right and then didn't even finish half of it. Instead, she forced me to eat most of it. I didn't complain.
Everything was going smoothly and we were having a great time until we noticed a little bulge in the tire. After a little discussion, we decided that it wasn't safe to keep driving on so we changed it. Chase did some strong work here.

Now it was even more of a chick magnet.

This nice guy above came into his auto repair shop on Sunday (even though it was closed) and gave us a new tire. Well, he didn't give it to us, he charged us $180 (NZ)
After the tire repair, we felt safe driving again and headed back to Lake Taupo for some Sunday fun. We ate lunch at a nice little cafe, walked along the water, checked out the beach, ate some ice cream, and hit some golf balls into the water. Mary has more pictures from Sunday so I'll add her pictures in another update later this week.

That's me, with flowers, in front of the lake.

This is the shore of Lake Taupo. I tried to capture how big it really is but this doesn't do the greatest job. It seems like it goes on forever.
We grabbed some dinner in town and then headed back to Auckland. Just before getting into Auckland we saw a beautiful sunset, which of course, we got some pictures of.

So that was our weekend. How's the weather in Kansas? Just kidding, I'm sure it's beautiful. I've got a bunch of pictures from Kayla and Mary. I'll upload those in the next day or two. For now, I think I'll go watch some TV and relax. Have a great Valentine's Day! -- Tommy