New Zealand, Part I

Aaron and I have been dreaming/talking about going to New Zealand since we were in college. To be honest, the things that first attracted us to the country were that it was somewhere on the other side of the world and they mainly speak English. But then we started learning more about it, and it sounded pretty amazing. Ocean? check. Moutains? check. Tropical forests? check. Adventure capital of the world? yes, please. And so it was decided: someday we were going to go to New Zealand.

Fast forward 6 years. We got off the plane in Auckland, and picked up our rental car. Driving on the left side of the road - that was fun. And confusing. And stressful! Eventually we got (somewhat) used to it, and we successfully made our way into the downtown area for some city exploring. We spent a couple days in Auckland, "the city of sails", and while we were there, we went to a farmer's market, took a tour of a Kiwi (fruit) farm, and relaxed at a beach. We also took a ferry across the bay from the city to a village, Devonport, where we climbed a dormant volcano and got some neat pictures of the city.

We then headed on our way to Rotorua (or "RotoVegas", as it is affectionately called by the locals). Here we saw a Kiwi (bird) farm, learned more about the native Maori culture, and tried the "Mordor Special" from a great pizza place, "Hell". Far and away my favorite thing we did in RotoVegas was Zorbing.

We weren't sure exactly what this would be like since we had really only read about it, but it turned out to be crazy fun! So basically what they do is inflate a giant ball (or Zorb), take it to the top of a huge hill, throw a few gallons of water into the Zorb, toss a few people into the Zorb through a beach-ball-sized hole, zip up the hole, and push the Zorb down the hill. The inside inside the Zorb involves sliping, sliding, trying to stand but failing, and a whole lot of laughing.