Rotorua, North Island - Page 2
After getting out of the big city of Auckland and into the North Island countryside, we stopped to admire sheep several times until we had passed our first million of so. They were nice to look at first, part of the background scenery after a few days of driving past so many.
We had rented a big SUV that was good for 5 people. Not a big car for Texas, but I think we had the biggest SUV in all of New Zealand!
May in New Zealand is different from May in Texas. The seasons are reversed so it was getting to be winter time. That is why you see us bundled up in 2-3 layers. I had expressed my desire to go snow skiing on the South Island when we got to Queenstown, they have some pretty good ski areas there, the mountains are known as the Southern Alps.
Click on any photo to see a larger view
We drove to Rotorua, on the North Island of New Zealand, to see the volcanic activity there. It is very much like Yellowstone National Park in the US. The smell of hot sulfur is everywhere, and in a great many areas there is steam coming right out of the ground by the roads, between houses, in parks, etc. The earth’s crust is very thin here and can be seen by the steam, bubbling mud pits, hot water vents and geysers. Below are a few video clips we took, for some reason I never took a still photo.
We spent our first night in New Zealand at a Bed and Breakfast on a small farm outside of Rotorua. These pictures were taken our first morning there. Kendra was out exploring and came yelling about the big deer that were 20 yards from our porch. They were very tame, even her loud noise, running and bright red outfit did not scare them off. This was unusual to us – our first reaction was to be quiet.
