Rotorua

Oooh, ahhh, ouch...everything is sore from our hike! We arrived yesterday in Rotorua, the geothermal capital of New Zealand. We also chose our accommodation based on the availability of a thermal pool on site which we thoroughly enjoyed this morning. Today we spent the whole day wandering (slowly) through the grounds of Te Puia thermal reserve, which contains the country's largest geyser and used to be a Maori settlement. The reserve also had a 45-min cultural performance, to share Maori games, songs and a demonstration of haka, the traditional war dance. Rotorua is the largest Maori city in New Zealand. There are only ~700,000 Maori descendants, of which 95% are mixed blood. Our Maori tour guide's name was Paul Mc-something. The reserve is also home to the NZ Maori Arts and Crafts institute, which has a 3-year wood carving program taught by Maori master carvers. One condition of admission is that you must be at least 1/64 Maori.

Tongariro Alpine Crossing

Today we hiked the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, a 19.4km hike across volcano craters and Mt Ngauruhoe (aka Mt Doom from the Lord of the Rings). We were up at 4:30am, with a shuttle pickup from our holiday park at 5:15 to take us to the start of the track. We started hiking around 7:30 and finished around 3:30, with many stops for snacks and photos. We would definitely do it again!

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.

Aquarium

We went to the national aquarium today. It was cool. We are going back tomorrow :)

Hawke's Bay

Hawke's Bay is known as the "food bowl" of New Zealand, according to the local food and wine brochure. This region accounts for a significant percentage of New Zealand's apple exports. There are also over 70 wineries here, which accounts for over 80% of New Zealand's plantings of merlot, cabernet sauvignon and syrah. That being said, we found the 2015 riesling from the Forrest winery that we visited in Marlborough and purchased it to go with dinner instead of a random local wine. We even picked ourselves up a plastic wine glass, which is a worthwhile upgrade from our plastic mug! We will sample a local winery tomorrow or Friday :)