New Zealand

We are in beautiful New Zealand. We arrived in Auckland on the north island a couple of days ago. We are both kind of sick of city life after Buenos Aires, so we didn't stick around too long. We are also sick of public transportation, so we rented a car for our month long stay here in New Zealand. So far, we have camped our first two nights and will hopefully continue to do so. It is absolutely breathtaking everywhere you look. We are so happy to be here. The weather is warm and sunny. Our plan is to stay at the north island for two weeks, then take the ferry to the south island and stay there for two weeks.

Yesterday we stayed in the town of Matamata. Nearby is Hobbiton, the Hobbit village from the Lord of the Rings. There isn't much remaining from the movie set, so we opted not to go on the $50 tour! The whole area is very beautiful. The day before that we were in a beach town on the eastern coast. We camped there as well and Doug did some surfing before heading out to a winery not too far away.

Today we are in Rotorua, which has thermal springs and spurting geysers. It is also on a lake so we plan on doing some trout fishing. While driving into town we stopped at the hill where they offer "Zorbing". This is where you crawl into an inflated clear plastic ball. They fill it partially with water, and then they roll you down the hill. Doug tried it out and had a great time sliding around inside the ball as it wound its way down the zig zag track.

This afternoon we will have our first try at fishing in New Zealand. The local tackle shop said that our pole and reel (which is fine by California standards) is much too small for the trout here. Hopefully we are able to get a fish on the line to see if they were right.