Time for a long trip!

While we have been in New Zealand for more than six months, we haven't really gotten out to see the country. Partially this is due to living on Waiheke (when you live right next to a beach surrounded by vineyards, it is tough to force yourself out to see... a beach with vineyards, which is a lot of what New Zealand has to offer). Partially it is the inertia brought on by traveling with a little guy. But Mike has arranged to give talks in Wellington and Christchurch (he is the Operational Research Society's Visiting Lecturer, so he has to go out to give talks in various places), so it is time to see more of New Zealand.


We start off by ferry (where Alexander met a friend), on a rainy day. It is typical New Zealand rain: a cloudburst, followed by sun, followed by rain, followed by sun. Today, we had a pool on how often it would rain (rain for at least one minute, followed by at least five minutes of sun). The correct guess was ten times.



Our destination today was Napier, with a lunch stop at Taupo. Taupo is a neat little town not far from Matamata (where we visited Hobbiton on the last trip out). Their "schtick" is corrugated sheet metal. It seems that every shop in town has a sign made out of this. The exception is the tourist information office which made entire out of sheet metal, in the form of a sheepdog, with an attached cafe/souvenir shop in the form of a sheep.

I'm sure the drive to Napier (about 420 km) is quite nice, but the weather didn't let us enjoy much of the scenery.