eNZed - day 8 (22-5-5)

To keep up with the Murphy's Law of Vacations and other plans, we woke up to pouring rain today.. mm hmm... wonderful. We got packed up (dave very quickly, A in the middle, and me dragging behind not looking forward to another 4 hour hike in the rain at all) and headed out, but not before the kiddies. Turned out going down the mountain is WAY faster! I know.. who's the genius that figured that one out.. So after 2 hours of hiking as quickly as we could without killing our knees or slipping on wet rocks, we arrived back at the van.

Luckily it was there, and completely not broken into. Not that we were concerned about that, but it was nice to have something to appreciate. Even though we all had raincoats, there were only a couple of square inches left dry on all of us due to the sweating and the rain. We threw everything into the car, blasted the heat and headed out on a hunt for food.

Angelica and I had decided during the last 30mins of the hike that it was time to get a hot shower and sleep in an actual structure without wheels with either a fireplace or a hot tub and laundry, and Dave was going to take it and like it. So after a fair quality lunch (not at all what I was looking for) in Thames, it was off to Rotorua.

The drive was exciting with pouring rain and blustery winds, but A made it there without incident while Dave navigated and I tried to sleep off my sore throat.

We stopped to let Dave out for a quick look at a hot bubbling mud area when we first got into town, but A and I were sick of being wet so we stayed in. After some driving around we finally settled at Holden's Bay Holiday Park after checking out the park on Lake Rotorua (which literally means Lake Lake Rua). At the park there were black swans! A and I thought they were fake, but then Dave sangged some pics...


Dave also spend 20 mintues taking pics of leaves, which A and I teased him about, but the pics are kick-ass..


The Holiday Park had private rentable hot tubs and kitchen cabins. SOLD! We set up a time at the hot tub, then A and I went to town while Dave got things drying off.

A and I bought some food to cook for dinner, and some vodka and juice (Fresh-up apple nectarine - best juice EVER) for the hot tub. We got back and Dave had unloaded all the wet stuff and got the space heater going.

After dinner, it was time for the TUB! No suits made it extra fun especially when Dave and A decided to take a jump in the NOT heated pool outside.. I was the party pooper, but I didn't want to get my throat going again, so I manned the door waching them make the "oh my god that's cold face" while waiting for them to come squealing back to the hot tub and ease back in. Good times =)!

There aren't actually any pics from Day 8 since it was raining and we were driving and hiking in that all day.. these pics are actually from Day 9!