Taupo

We are now in Taupo. It was a busy day:
- woke up early early early to drive up Te Mata peak to watch the sun rise - photo taken at 7:07am!
- headed back to the aquarium at 9am for our insider's tour of the little blue penguins and their 9:30am feeding (fun fact: the fish they feed their penguins, which are injured/rescue penguins, are so small that they don't meet the size requirement for fishing in New Zealand...so they are purchased from the Netherlands instead and supplemented with US vitamins m)
- bought a bunch of fruit and veggies from roadside fruit stalls (including a fig farm that sells 5 types of figs that were picked this morning
- drive 2 hrs to Taupo and explored the city centre, which is hosting the Ironman New Zealand race tomorrow (we have a knack for catching the big multisport events, and just missing the sheep shearing events!!)
- bought wine at the grocery store, where we were not only carded but also had to run out to the car to fetch our passports since foreign drivers licenses are insufficient (note: the drinking age in New Zealand is 18)
- fun fact about our wine - it is from Marlborough but Vidal has a vineyard down the street from our Hawke's Bay campsite. We didn't bother with a tasting since we needed to drive to Taupo - so we will do our own tasting, one at a time, grocery store style :) this one is a 2015 Pinot Noir. It was quite nice after it has some time to breathe but red wines require more effort to appreciate...we are still working on developing this skill!
- cooked a lovely lamb stew (the fanciest camping cooking we've done so far!) to accompany our wine
- went for an evening swim in the heated pool - pool temp: 34-38'; current air temp: 16'...brrr! Getting out of the pool was much less fun than jumping in! This campsite also has a swim-up bar - it is the most resort-like campground we've ever been to!

Tomorrow morning we will check the forecasted weather conditions for Sunday and see if we will be able to hike to...Mordor! Yup, seriously.