It's been a long time! I won't attempt to fill in the last 18 months. But in 2015 we had a very special trip to New Zealand and it's definitely worth documenting. We visited the North Island for just over a week. Here we are on our first day. We arrived extremely late the night before and slept at the Dunlops. The kids had a great morning playing with the cousins and then we set off enroute to Rotorua. First stop was an old mission haunt for Elliot, Pokeno - cheapest Icecream I've ever had! It was delicious. Although rather cold!
The countryside is incredible and takes my breath away. Doesn't matter how many hours I drive through it, it never loses it's appeal - it's just beautiful.
We stopped at this lovely gorge around 1pm and did a little exploring. Lachlan loved going across the bridges and was very energetic and adventurous. Hayden was not enthusiastic and Natalie was particularly upset about having to get out of the car. But after initial teething problems we had a nice time here on the suspension bridges and going through this pitch-black tunnel. Hayden was not one little bit impressed about that discovery and was surprisingly very worried about going through it and did not enjoy it at all. It was incredibly long and while we thought we could walk quickly to the other end, we didn't actually make it.
Lachlan and Natalie thought it was marvellous, but Elliot did have to put Nat on his shoulders for most of the walk... Lachlan is becoming quite the adventurer and is getting very confident. We had a nice hot lunch in a quaint cafe across the road nestled in the mountainside. The owners had a number of sleepy cats and the kids had a great time patting them while we warmed up and refueled.
A very narrow car bridge...
A toilet stop enroute to Rotorua. An info centre and toilet block in a sheepdog shape was pretty fun in Tirau.
