Romans Ramble

We left Christchurch the other morning... well, weeks ago now... and drove through Lyttelton on the way to Akora. Lyttelton is a small port just the other side of the mountain to the south and east of Christchurch. You literally drive through the mountain to get there. As we exited the tunnel it looked like there was an apartment building right at the end, only to see it was a gigantic cruise ship blocking out the horizon. We stopped at a view point where an old mariners time ball station stood, it was destroyed in the 2011 earthquake. A time ball station is very much like the ball they drop at new years in New York city. It signaled to all the ships in harbor the exact time of 1:00pm as the ~4ft diameter black ball hit the deck once dropped. Knowing the time precisely helped ships better determine their location out at sea. We grabbed some lunch and walked around town a little then back in the car. View of Lyttelton from base of time ball station.  Akora is a bit out of the way. I...

 We made it to Christchurch on the south island a few days before Christmas. We flew from Auckland, it was super easy. Our plan is to drive down the east coast all the way to Invercargill, stopping a few places along the way. Once at Invercargill we hook around and head northwest and inland to Queenstown. Our accommodations in Christchurch were nice and brand new back in 1972 but suited us well, the Aalton Motel ( map ). It was right next to a huge park (Hagley Park) which was right next to downtown, a little far to walk across the park though. I was only able to run around half of it. Parking downtown was nuts, but maybe it was because everyone was shopping for last minute presents. Out of the few days in Christchurch we spent a bulk of the time downtown at Margaret Mahy Playground ( map ), the central library for free Lego building, the Riverside Market and a visit to the QuakeCity museum. Zane had a great time at all of them, minus the walk between each location. Zane, " I don...

We stayed in Waitomo for four nights and although rural there was so much to do!  The first day we went down the street to the Marokopa waterfall , well maybe a little further it was 30mins away.  The lookout platform at the trail end was broken so we hiked through down to the waterfall loosing our shoes in the mud and having a fantastic time!  In the heat of the day we were getting cold with mist poring off the cliff. After skipping from rock to rock we hung out for a while further downstream and washed out our shoes.  The hike to the waterfall and the waterfall itself were beautiful and bigger than expected!    After the waterfall we headed back toward our holiday park and stopped to hike a small cave, Pirpiri Cave .  Unfortunately, it was wet inside and Zane slipped in the cave and toppled down a few stairs. It scared the hell out of us.  He is fine but decided he didn't like the cave much after that.   A little further from the cave,...

On our way from Rotorua to Waitomo we stopped off to go Zorbing at Zorb Rotorua ( map ).  If you want to feel like a hamster, you can roll down the mountain in these huge semi-transparent double walled rubber balls with a geometrically symmetric internal visco-elastic band suspension system, they are light years ahead of the old tire down the mountain. They load you in with some "warm" water and push you down one of four different tracks on the side of the mountain.  Inside the ball the water acts as a lubricant so you just slide all over the inside of the ball as its bouncing along the path. Zane and I went down all four tracks together but it's pretty disorienting inside so Nicole opted to wait for us in the hot tub viewing deck at the bottom after our first ride all together. You can't see much when you're rolling at high speed, the water is splashing everywhere and Z and I couldn't stop laughing the whole way down. My abs were killing me afterward, great ...

After Zane's small zip line experience at the ninja course, he was ready for the real deal big time. So, Nicole found the only zip line course that allows 5 year olds in New Zealand, which was conveniently 15 minutes away from our accommodation. Rotorua Rafting ( map ) was who we used.  We zip-lined across two waterfalls, including the longest waterfall drop for river rafting, a 7 meter (23ft) drop.  After zipping through our second line they allowed us to go back out on the line and just hang over the waterfall for a few minutes - it was incredible and a bit scary.  Zane went with me the first line, Nicole the second, and by himself the last two lines. By the fourth zip line he was going backwards and bragging about it.  They also had a hanging bridge that we were able to attach to and lean off in the middle, now I thought that was scary.  This was Nicole's favorite activity so far through the trip. I'm so glad it was such a nice day and we really had a fun gr...