Rotorua

We checked out of our first airbnb this morning and were sad to say goodbye to our fabulous hosts. They had just harvested a ton of grapes from their vines so they sent some with us, as well as some spinach and passion fruit. I had never tried a passion fruit before but it was really good; surprisingly sweet. It kind of reminded me of a pomegranate in the way it had little pods inside. And the grapes are unlike any grapes I've had before. They are green grapes but they have a different flavor and they burst in your mouth differently. It's hard to explain. Very tasty though!

Then we drove south to a town called Rotorua. We ate lunch there at a cool spot they call Eat Streets where they have a bunch of cool restaurants. Then we went to the Polynesian Spa and sat in a hot springs tub for half an hour- it was lovely.

Then we drove out to the country to our next Airbnb. It's a guest house on a farm and the views are phenomenal. To give you an idea, since pictures don't do it justice, we're about 5 minutes away from where they filmed the Shire scenes in the LOTR series. The guest house is just a little one room and bathroom building, but new and clean. It's really all about the views though. Our hostess directed us to a hike right outside our door that took us up to a hill where we could see forever. Here are a couple of pictures.

This is from the hill during our hike:

And this is from right outside our window:

Then we jumped in the pool for a quick swim then cleaned up and ate a quick sandwich dinner. We then headed back to Rotorua to walk in the redwood forest, but it was raining too hard and we were tired so we just grabbed a few things from the grocery store and headed home for the night.

We've found prices down here to be pretty comparable to the US, with the exception of gas which is a bit more expensive. We paid NZ$47 for half a tank of gas, which is about $34 US dollars so that was a bit expensive. But the food has been pretty reasonable. We bought some groceries on our first day for $16 US dollars. For that we got 500 grams of ham, cheese, buns, potato chips, and breakfast bars. Then we've had a couple of nicer dinners but I haven't spent more than $10 US dollars for dinner, although I do tend to get the cheaper options. And there are fast food places with cheaper options. For lodging we spent $169 for two nights in our airbnb, so that's $84.50 per night. And split 3 ways is only $28 per night per person. That's all US dollars.

Happy Saturday to everyone back home!