Yes it's true, my lovely family and I just got back from the most brilliant holiday in New Zealand. We were lucky enough to spend 9 fantastic days in this beautiful country. I can honestly say that, I think, New Zealand is a great cross between England and America. Although, yes it is different and has its own wonderful Maori traditions, I think, that you are able to get the best of both worlds, and more, in this country.
Instead of boring you to death with all the stories, I think photos do it much better. So here they are:
Day 1
The flight from Hawaii to New Zealand is actually longer than I originally thought. To make our travelling journey longer we had to make a stop in Australia first. This meant that we didn't actually arrive at our hotel till 2am. So we were very tired our first day. So we had an nice easy day, not too much. We visited down town Auckland. Of course the first thing we had to see was the Sky Tower. The views from 720ft up were absolutely amazing! On the main observation deck (610ft) there is even glass flooring, so you can see the view below you feet!
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| The faint lines you see on the left are for the people who are crazy enough to bungee jump from the sky tower! Alas this extreme activity was not for us! |
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Rangitoto - volcanic island
We hiked up this island...yes to the very top! Photos below. |
We took a walk around the docks, got some yummy food and then went back to the hotel for the evening! Yes, we were still very tired.
Day 2
We wanted to do something fun for the boys today, as we had planed to go on a hike of Rangitoto island tomorrow, so we took the boys to Kelly Tarlton's Sea Life Centre. I have to admit, even I had fun. The boys just loved seeing all the penguins, rays, octopus and sharks.
We also went to a pier to see Auckland city from the other side of the bay. There were some great views of the city and we were able to enjoy a lovely stroll along the beach.
Day 3
To get to Rangitoto island you have to catch a 25 minute ferry ride from Auckland. That in it's self was fun for the boys! The hike takes approximately 1 hour each way. On the way up there Roman actually walked for 30 minutes, before he asked to be carried! And Noah hiked the whole way up and down.
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| Rangitoto Island from the ferry! |
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| Noah was tired of walking! But he had done it...a 2 hour hike for a 4 year old isn't bad! |
Roman fell asleep before we even got down from the top. So Matthias carried him the whole way down!
Day 4 & 5
Our 4th day in New Zealand was Sunday, so we went to church and just did a nice walk in the afternoon. So no fun photos that day. However, Monday (day 5) we took a 3 hour drive down to Rotorua; more specifically Te Puia. Rotorua is know for is natural springs, geysers, lakes and forests. It really is beautiful there. Noah has always wanted to see a real geyser ever since he saw one on the kids TV show, Dinosaur Train and Te Puia had plenty of them! We even got to see the Kiwi bird, although we weren't allowed to photograph it! We did see it!
Day 6
Oh my goodness, today, well I have so many photographs its crazy. We visited Hobbiton! Jealous yet?! ;) For all you LOTR fans out there, it truly was amazing! In fact I am confident enough to say that even if you're not a LOTR fan, you would LOVE this place. Our boys had a blast!
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| This was our first glimpse of Hobbiton! You can see Bag End at the top of the picture. (The small tree on top of it is fake!) |
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| Bag End |
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| Although it looks like you can walk through the door to rooms, you can't. There isn't anything past what you can see. Although it has been rumoured that they will be building Bag End and making it into a place you can stay? This is at least what our tour guide told us! |
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| Green Dragon |
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| Going for a drink in the Green Dragon |
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| Free ginger beers at the Green Dragon. |
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| The inside of the Green Dragon made up for the fact you couldn't go in the hobbit holes. |
I think I have over 200 photos of Hobbiton, so I think I better stop here! :)
Day 7
As some of you may know there are lots of sheep in New Zealand. 11 sheep to every person! With that in mind we had to go to a farm and see a sheep show. In fact, the show time we had chosen was great. We ended up being the only ones in the show and we got to do everything, from shearing sheep (Noah got to keep the wool he cut off.) to sorting sheep and feeding lambs! It was brilliant.
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| There were other animals there that we could feed. This is the first time Noah fed anything as he was a little scared. Roman on the other hand loved feeding them! |
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| Noah giving the sheep a 'hair cut' |
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| I thought it was funny I captured this photo! |
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| We love how it looks like the little horse is eating Matthias' arm! |
Day 8
Our trip is almost over and we couldn't come all the way to NZ without going to the Hamilton temple. For those of you who don't know what a LDS Temple is or want to know more, you can read more
here. It was a glorious day and a lovely time for a drive to also soak up all of the sights the north island of NZ had in store.
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| Sheep were everywhere! |
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| Port Waikato |
Day 9
Our last day :( We were having so much fun, we really didn't want it to end. Day 9 was the day we were flying home. Although it wasn't till 5.30pm, so we took advantage of our last hours in NZ, went and bought some yummy English chocolate (Bounty, Milky Bar, Malteasers.....) and then visited Butterfly Creek. It wasn't too far from the airport, so we just had time to fit it in.
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| There were butterflies everywhere. They would even land on you....that freaked Noah out a little! ;) |
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| Noah wanted to take the rabbit home and was very sad when we told him we couldn't! |
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| Goats ~ I don't like feeding goats! The will eat anything. Poor Noah get this goat a handful of feed and he obviously thought it wasn't enough, so he then took the whole brown bag of feed and downed the whole lot! |
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| I just thought this pig was funny looking! |
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| We have such cute boys don't you think? |
Well, that's all folks! Yes, this was our New Zealand trip in a nut shell. We loved it so much and would definitely recommend it to anyone. Maybe, one day, we will go back and see the south island! We truly do live on a beautiful planet!
In other news, I best just share that Noah finally lost his first tooth! Yes, our big boy has been cutting 2 big boy teeth now for 2/3 weeks and so he lost his first baby tooth yesterday! I guess he will have a visit from the tooth fairy tonight!
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