New Zealand - Day 5, Part 1

Sooo, yeah, kinda a rough night last night. I didn't sleep a whole lot and got up somewhat early. Heck, I might as well...and besides, I was curious to see if I got an email response from David. Becky was still sleeping soundly, so I snuck back outside to mooch off the innkeepers wifi again. Oh wow - I got an email response from David! He assured me that all would be ok...that we would work everything out. Thank you God. Thank you, thank you, thank you..... I fell into a slump in the chair, incredibly relieved that I had a chance to make things right and amazed at the wonderful man I had married. Things are looking up! After a bit, Becky woke up and found me outside. Her fever broke! She was worn out, but for the first time in a long time, she's feeling better!!! This was fabulous news! She wasn't going to have to go to the emergency room afterall. Ahhhh, yes, things were definitely looking up, indeed. We ate oatmeal in our room, showered and got ready to walk down the road to Kuirau Park (shown above). We spied it when we drove in. It was hard not to miss. Steam was coming up from it all over the place! This park was so awesome...and free! Check out this stuff that we found:

Mud pots!!! I LOVE mud pots.

Pretty neat, huh? We were WIGGIN' at how cool all this stuff was! Well, it got better. Yes indeedy. Kuirau Park had these thermal baths that we could soak our feet in!!! Check it out now, funk soul brother:

How many parks do you know where you can go soak in hot thermal baths for FREE?!? Sooo neat. Disclaimer: from here on out, I will have curly hair as shown above. I realize that this is an anomoly. I know it ain't pretty, but at this point, I didn't care anymore!!! Anyway, other observations from the park are shown below. The tree to the left is a eucalyptus. Isn't it wild how they shed their bark? Also, there were flowers all over New Zealand too, especially roses. The park had tons of pretty flowers! Oh, and when we were soaking in the baths, I also saw this funny sign. No swimming and no drinking alcohol in the baths....and BEWARE of the hot water! No duh!

We spent most of the morning at the park and LOVED it. In fact, my pics don't do it enough justice, so here are some movie clips of the nifty stuff we saw.

While super cool, we had so much more to do today. We walked back to the hotel, and on the way , I spied two Skylines. Skyline cars were all over the place in NZ, but they are not in the US (for the most part).

My drifter friends would have been drooling like crazy over these! These two weren't the best ones I saw, but it just goes to show how common they were. Speaking of common, see the phone booth? These things are all over the place too! We have basically no more phone booths left in the US. Believe it or not, phone booths are still a main form of communication in NZ. Fascinating....

So anyway, we got back to the hotel, hopped in the RV, and headed to another hike called the Whakarewarewa (Do NOT ask me to pronounce that!) Viewpoint Track. Again, thanks to NZ Frenzy, we were able to hike up this trail to see Pohutu Geyser, along with a bonus view of Lake Rotorua. I have a movie of what we saw from the top. (BTW - I called it the wrong name on the video...my bad.)

We scrambled back down the mountain, with fabulous girl talk the whole way and then made our way over to the Polynesian Spa for spa lunch and soaking in the adult baths. Ahhhhhhh....

More to come in Day 5, Part 2 (along with bikini top shots! - LOL LOL LOL!)