Auckland and Rotorua

I knew it! As soon as lambs are born and bulbs start flowering we get another cold spell. And here it is. Snow on the hills, a cold southerly and less than 10 degrees C most of the day. Particularly hard to get used to since I have just spent almost a fortnight in Auckland, with a weekend in Rotorua thrown in. I only wore my jacket once in Auckland, when there was a cold evening wind. Yet, for those who live there and who are used to the warmer temperatures this August weather still appeared cold. See Karen in hat and jacket on the wonderful beach near their house.

A weekend in Rotorua, a town famous for its lake, its geothermal features and its Maori history. I first visited Rotorua when I had only been in New Zealand for a year and really enjoyed learning more about the Maori history and visiting not only the thermal pools but also a Maori village. That village is still there. Here is a link.

But that's not what we did this time around. Instead we took a gondola ride up Mount Ngongotaha, which has a great view of Rotorua, the lake and the surroundings. With our ticket we also bought a ride on the Sky Swing and five rides on the luge. It was a nice day with good views. We went on the Sky Swing first, which was just as well, because I don't know whether I would have wanted to go on it after my five luge rides. It looked OK and exciting, but it was actually extremely scary. At least going up was frightening. You sit on a three-seater roundish sort of ski lift type contraption, with bucket seats into which one is very securely and tightly strapped. That feels really safe. But then they slowly hoist that swing back and up and up and up and up. And like any swing where you pull a person back and up, you end up sort of hanging forward. I had forgotten that I have a tendency towards vertigo in my late middle age, and I felt very anxious and ended up having to close my eyes. When they indicate from below that all is ready, you have to pull a short rope to release the swing and away you go at tremendous speed. That's quite exhilirating. Most people scream their head off. There are some U-Tube movies of people on this swing. Here is a link to a good one. So that's not us on the swing, but our experience was very similar. The luge was easier and fun, but I have no pictures of that because we were on it :-) After the ride you travel back up with a chair lift and with the luge vehicles hooked underneath.

The next day was MTB day and I went along for a walk in the forest. Karen did really well and came third in her group, but Mark's bike conked out and he had to walk part of the way. This was their start and Mark's finish:

I had intended to work on my book while in Auckland, but was too lazy and just read, with my wonderful e-reader. There are very few e-readers in New Zealand, but funnily on my return flight from Auckland to Christchurch there were three people, all women, who owned one: myself, a stewardess and a young American woman. We could have compared notes, because mine is a BE-book, the stewardess had a Sony reader and the American the latest Kindle. My e-reader comes from Holland and I chose it after comparing the various readers available. If you want to do the same, here is a good page of comparisons to start with. I am absolutely delighted with my e-reader. Light to hold and it has stacks of free ebooks on it from various websites. I have not had to buy a book yet. But that's only true if you like reading classics which are out of copyright. The only disadvantage when you travel several short flights is that every time you take off and land you have to turn the thing off because it is considered an electronic device. Then you need to find something else to read.