FAMILY in New Zealand!

Hi there!

Welcome to the Solinsky family epic vacation adventure part one: New Zealand! After a bit of a plane mishap concerning Chicago, my family made it to New Zealand one day late and we have been off and running ever since! I’ll break it down by day:

Saturday June 26: My family got into Auckland International Airport bright and early in the morning where I met them with our guide. After loading everyone up in the van we set off for Rotorua. When we got to Rotorua we went to the Whakawerawera Maori village. Unlike most tourist attractions in Rotorua, this Maori village was not staged and the Maori actually live there. We had a tour by a Maori woman who lives in the village and saw her family throughout the tour. She told us the history and daily functioning of the village. The village is built amongst many geothermal features and it was fascinating to hear about how the Maori use these geothermal pools in their daily lives. For example, they use the really hot pools for cooking – and we even had corn which is cooked in one and it was delicious!! They also have a ton of nature walks around the different geothermal activities which were nice. After the tour we went to the cultural performance put on by the Maori which was really fun. They did a lot of different songs and dances and even did the haka. They also had a section with audience participation where I was invited up to learn and perform a dance with a poi, which was hilarious for my family to watch. It was a really interesting place to go to. After the village, we had a quick tour around Rotorua where we learned the history of the town. Basically Rotorua would not exist without tourism due to it’s geothermal activities. It was originally thought that the geothermal activities could be used for healing powers. We stopped along Lake Rotorua which is beautiful. From there we drove to Hamilton where we had dinner and went to the ALL BLACKS GAME!! For those of you who do not know, the All Blacks is the national rugby team of New Zealand. Many kiwis will say that New Zealand does not really have a religion, but if one had to be chosen it would be the All Blacks. All New Zealanders love the All Blacks and are constantly following and discussing them. Since they are a national team, they are constantly playing rugby internationally and hence do not play many home tests (or matches). In fact, I think they have only played two or three tests in New Zealand since I have been there (and none of these tests were near Auckland). Therefore, when I found out that there was going to be a game in Hamilton (relatively close to Auckland and Rotorua) when my family would be here I jumped on it! The pre-game show was really fun – they had dance shows and fireworks! Then right before the game started, the All Blacks did their famous haka. It was SO cool to see the haka in person after hearing so much about it! The haka is a traditional Maori war dance to intimidate their opponents. The All Blacks perform a haka before every match to intimidate their opponents. After the haka the test began. Rugby is a little hard to watch in person because there are no announcers and I felt like I was constantly trying to find the ball. However, it was a lot of fun and I definitely understood most of the game which was exciting! The All Blacks beat Wales which was awesome! Then my family was so exhausted from the long day (some of them were even falling asleep at the test), and we all slept for most of the car ride between Hamilton and Taupo, where we stayed for the night.

Sunday June 27: We woke up in Taupo and my family felt much more refreshed after finally sleeping in a bed. Our room overlooked the beautiful Lake Taupo (let’s just say it was an upgrade compared to the backpackers that I had been staying in!). Lake Taupo was really gorgeous, especially with the snowcapped mountains behind it. It was so cool to see Taupo in the winter because it’s one of the areas of the North Island that gets snow. I could kind of see Tongariro crossing in the distance which I hiked back in January and it now has snow! Anyways after breakfast we were picked up by Rapid Sensations and were off for our bike and kayak adventure. We first did biking. Considering I had biked all semester I figured it would not be that hard for me. However, we ended up mountain biking which was so hard and intense! We biked down to Huka Falls which is New Zealand’s #1 free tourist spot. The falls are 12 metres and this awesome blue color and are just amazing to look at! After biking back we went in a bike forest area which was pretty fun (considering we were on the easiest track). By the end I got more used to it but lets just say that I definitely prefer road biking! After the bike section of the trip we went on to kayaking on the Waikato River! The river was really beautiful and pretty calm. We basically just kayaked down the river, and it was a really nice day out so it was lovely. As we were kayaking we saw someone bungy jump which was really cool and scary to watch. Then we made it to the natural hot pools which were just on the side of the river. We parked our kayaks, hopped out and went for a soak in the hot pools – they were amazing! It was kind of an enclosed area with a waterfall coming down and it was all natural and so gorgeous! Then we hopped back in our kayaks and paddled a few minutes down the river to get to the van. After drying off we were off again to Rotorua. After reaching Rotorua, Brian, Jason and I went Zorbing. A zorb basically looks like a giant plastic ball filled with another smaller ball in it. You jump into the smaller ball and get rolled down a hill. It is a really crazy unique experience. We all did the hydrozorb where they put water in the smaller ball that you’re in and it kind of is like what a washing machine would feel like. It was completely bizarre but pretty fun! Then we had lunch at Jesters which is a classic New Zealand pie (lunch not dessert pie) place where we all had New Zealand pies. Then we all headed up the gandola and went luging which was lots of fun! After luging we headed back in the van and drove to Auckland. Once we were checked into the hotel we went to Gina’s Italian restaurant for dinner, which was delicious.

Monday June 28: Today was my one day to show my whole family around what has become my home over the last 6 months: Auckland! We got up early and went to Café Melba for breakfast which was very yummy. We then headed over to the ferry terminal and went on an island hop-on/hop-off ferry for the day. They took us by the harbour bridge and Devonport and we got off at Rangitoto. We climbed Rangitoto and the weather held up wonderfully and we were able to have a great view! We then hopped back on the ferry and got off at Mission Bay where we had lunch and ice cream. We then took a bus back into the city and did a bit of souvenir shopping. For dinner we went to the Viaduct which was good. Then we had to pack up and get ready for Australia! It was a really awesome last day in Auckland, and I still can’t believe it was my last one there!

Sending lots of Solinsky love from Aotearoa!