Réinitialiser la recherche
Australia & New Zealand trip
  • Sallee Family
  • Sallee Family

Australia & New Zealand trip

Une aventure de 38 jours par Sallee En savoir plus
S’abonnerAperçuAperçuCalendrierCalendrierPhotosPhotosPartagerPartagerListe de choses à faire
AperçuCalendrierPhotos
  • Sallee FamilyAustralia & New Zealand tripVoyageur

    Te Puia

    30 octobre 2017, Nouvelle-Zélande ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Our tour also came with a show and a dinner.
    The show wasn't too bad. We got some poi swinging by the ladies and a war dance by the guys. Show was followed by a very nice feast!
    Here's a list of some of the things I tried:
    Seafood Chowder - yummy
    Smoked Eel - No so yummy
    Potato Salad - great
    Pasta Salad - great
    Lamb - Ok, but not a big fan
    Chicken - Delicious!
    Pork - Yummy
    Hot Pasta in cream sauce - Yummy
    Scalloped Potatoes with Garlic and creamy cheese sauce - Awesome!
    Some other noodle dish - Tasty!
    Purple potatoes - tasted just like sweet potatoes
    Chocolate dipped cream puffs - Amazing
    Bread Pudding with Vanilla Cream sauce - Amazing
    Vanilla Ice Cream - Ok
    Layered Dessert - Cake / Pudding / Whipped Cream - Yummy!
    Both Brenda and I blew ourselves up, so we are ready for bed with our stomachs quite full.
    Tomorrow is an open day, with some sort of day trip planned. Might check out another disc golf place, we will see.
    Also, it's Halloween!!! So, we're going to pick out some sort of New Zealand Candy to try :-)    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Sallee FamilyAustralia & New Zealand tripVoyageur

    Lake Nigakoro

    31 octobre 2017, Nouvelle-Zélande ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Bright Green in color. Worth the walk out to the furthest point in the park. I got to try out Kiwi driving after leaving the park. I had the same struggles as David...using the wipers when I wanted to signal, merging in and out of the countless roundabouts, and maintaining focus on ‘stay left’. I had most trouble with roundabouts because I didn’t realize that every car had to yield. So I was being overly tentative. I feel like I did okay and feel like I could do it again if needed (hmm, maybe a trip to UK at some point???).En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Sallee FamilyAustralia & New Zealand tripVoyageur

    Taupo Lake

    31 octobre 2017, Nouvelle-Zélande ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Huge lake that is supposed to be very clear. I'd say the water isn't too bad, but not quite as clear as Lake Tahoe.

    They did have a fun "hole in one" floating island green to play with. Brenda and I watched as three "macho" guys tried to take their first swings at golf and were terrible. Most didn't make contact with their first five swings and when they did, it didn't go very far.

    We then saw some guys that actually had some nice golf swings and they got much closer to hitting the floating island.

    Quite entertaining.    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Sallee FamilyAustralia & New Zealand tripVoyageur

    Happy Halloween

    31 octobre 2017, Nouvelle-Zélande ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    Our last night here.

    We decided to each pick a candy we haven't had before.

    Picnic for Brenda.

    Chokito for me.

    Also, we are in a new room and have a much better connection to the wifi!

    Sadly, our last room had a stream of sugar ants coming out of the wall and heading towards the counter in our kitchen area. The staff tried to take care of it while we were gone, but when we returned, there were still ants, so they moved us to a different room. Our new room is closer to the main building and has two bedrooms plus a full kitchen. A nice upgrade, but it would have been nicer to not have the ants to begin with!En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Sallee FamilyAustralia & New Zealand tripVoyageur

    McLaren Disc Golf

    1 novembre 2017, Nouvelle-Zélande ⋅ ☀️ 16 °C

    Pretty extreme course. Tried to lose one of my discs a couple of times, but managed to find it.

    I also got to throw my new disc. It flies very straight. Might be useful on some of the courses at home.

    The course also had a lot of sheep, and where there is sheep, there is a lot of sheep droppings. A bit of a minefield out there when you're playing. Lots of times there wasn't a good place to put my backpack down, so had to play with it on. Score didn't suffer too much.    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Sallee FamilyAustralia & New Zealand tripVoyageur

    McLaren Falls

    1 novembre 2017, Nouvelle-Zélande ⋅ ☀️ 18 °C

    This is a huge (sorry, ‘massive’) state park. So beautiful and green and...hilly. We did a fair amount of hiking here. We started by playing disc golf then hiked around in search of vista points and waterfalls. Plus I made a little friend, face to face with a sweet NZ lamb. This nice older couple were taking him for a walk. He was super shy so he would not let us pet him.En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Sallee FamilyAustralia & New Zealand tripVoyageur

    Brenda's Top n Bottom 6 of North Island

    1 novembre 2017, Nouvelle-Zélande ⋅ ⛅ 18 °C

    We decided to clump these into just all our North Island stops. It is with mixed emotions of course, that I end this great holiday. It has been so great with far more ups than downs. I am sure we will do an overall review of whole trip when we return, so I will just focus on this part for now.
    HIGHLIGHTS
    1. Huka falls: This was a great, unplanned stop on our drive to Lake Taupo. We saw a sign and said let’s check it out. There was a 10 min hike to the mysterious falls. We put our boots on and hiked for over 15 min. Neither of us had great expectations for what we’d see. However, when we saw them we were awe-struck. So massive and blue (glacier blue). Well worth the stop.
    2. Glow Worm Caves: I hadn’t been in a cave since I was a kid so forgot just how cool they were...all those stalagmites and stalactites. Yet, add to that gently floating in the water looking up to see thousands of glow worm lights, well, that’s awesome.
    3. Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland: This place definitely had several unusually stunning thermal anomalies to see. The best part was the various colors and how close one could get to these deadly hot pools of magna-heated liquid.
    4. Hangi Mauri dinner experience: they offered quite the spread of varied foods, some of which were traditional hangi food. It was tasty and plentiful. I also liked how they seated people by home country. We got to chat with a nice couple from Ohio and share Left-side driving stories.
    5. McLaren Falls Park: This is a truly beautiful place and one could spend days here. We only had hours but spent it well.
    6. Morton: that is the little lamb I met in McLaren Park. Just so cute it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside (probably the wool).

    DISAPPOINTMENTS
    1. Red Rock Thermal Motel: Where to start... first room had bad WiFi, holes in curtains, temp fluctuates in shower, no tissues, and ANTS 🐜 . Once they moved us the WiFi improved but not the shower temp and overall condition of the room.
    2. Didn’t see the Kiwi. We had the chance but they were in their house hiding. 😞
    3. Te Puia guided tour of their geothermal park: This was a 90 min tour that should have been 30-45 min. We didn’t see as much of the park as we thought and the descriptions were mostly repetitive.
    4. First disc golf stop was a bust. We had doubts about it and they proved valid. Not really a playable place after a rain or without a map.
    5. Figuring out on the very last day that Google Maps Still worked in airplane mode and I didn’t need to engage my cell data international plan. Fortunately I didn’t need to do it often anyway and the maps and directions proved to be invaluable when used.
    6. David didn’t get to see the amazing World Series ⚾️ this year because of our sucky WiFi and because it wasn’t broadcast on NZ tv 📺 obviously. I know he would have really enjoyed it.    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Sallee FamilyAustralia & New Zealand tripVoyageur

    Getting Ready for our flight

    2 novembre 2017, Nouvelle-Zélande ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    Returned the car and are waiting at the airport.

    Because of checking out of the hotel, we got here nice and early. Works for me since I like to get places early :-)

    The drive to the rental place wasn't too bad. We got slightly off track at the very end, but it was close enough that it was easy to get back on track. Traffic wasn't an issue either since we were travelling during non-peak times.

    Car checked in with no problems and we had to wait a bit before getting checked in for the flight. Since we're first class travelers they treated us extra special and guided us through the process nicely.

    Now, off to the lounge!    En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction
  • Sallee FamilyAustralia & New Zealand tripVoyageur

    First Class lounge

    2 novembre 2017, Nouvelle-Zélande ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    Living it up!

    The lounge is super impressive. We will probably eat way too much, but it's all yummy and considering how much food costs here, I think we can save about $75 if we do it right :-)

    The wi-fi is free and should give me a chance to catch up on the prior blog points. Plus we have some time, so I can get to work on my Top / Bottom 6 for the North Island.En savoir plus

    Voir la traduction