Trip to Taupo

Now we know what passes as an urban area outside Wellington…

We have just returned from a wonderful weekend away. Despite the long drive (about 5 hours) up to Lake Taupo (especially lengthy with young kids as some of you can relate), it was worth it. We left Thursday evening, arriving at our little cottage or "bach" (pronounced batch) around 10. Maddy and Zeke were fast asleep and so transferred easily to beds. Jordy, our little night owl, woke up in a manic state, and then crashed about an hour later.

Friday we drove about 40 minutes down to ski at a place called Whakapapa (pronounced Faka-papa, I swear! - pun intended). It was an unsettled (mostly beautiful) day. After a short lesson, the girls were doing great, and we skied with them for a couple hours. Even Zeke got into it, skiing between our legs, and loving it - thinking that he was such a speedy and talented guy. See the photos. Both girls were so thrilled with their improved abilities; we had to practically drag them off of the mountain.

Friday night we had a really nice Shabbat dinner with new friends, Sam and Matt and their two sons, Isaac and Joel. She is Jewish, and he was raised Catholic, so obviously we feel some camaraderie with them. Dinner was great, and we even shared some of our delicious, if not perfectly risen, homemade challah that we had freezed from last week.


Saturday was a leisurely day around Taupo. It was quiet since it is mostly a summer destination. We relaxed around our bach and played a rousing game of hide the tennis ball, then we went for a short hike and had lunch with our friends. In the late afternoon Tony and Zeke went back to our bach to relax a bit more, while Rachel and the girls went with Sam and Isaac to some thermal pools nearby for their afternoon relaxation. We had a quiet night and watched the movie, "Spirit," that we had borrowed from the mobile library that stops around the corner from our house on Wednesdays.

We left our bach at 11 am Sunday morning. After driving to the mountain and seeing that the weather was too bad to ski (with the reaction of two wailing girls), we stopped at a gas station in a town called National Park, about 45 minutes south of our bach. It was there that we realized that we left the library's copy of "Spirit" in the DVD player at the bach. So, we got to hear the kids call out "cowabunga!, sheepabunga!, deerabunga!" as we passed the cows, sheep, and deer alongside of the road on the way to the back to the bach to retreive the movie. Then we were finally off for real, and on our return trip we enjoyed the beautiful hilly scenery, littered with sheep. Even the kids looked out the window occasionally. They were primarily focused on the movie playing on the ibook – thanks Lisa. The highlight of the return (for the kids) was our stop at diner in a converted WWII era McDonald Douglass (the "Cookie Time Plane" seen above), one of New Zealand's many roadside attractions. See the photos. Apparently the cast from Lord of the Rings was also fond of these tourist dives – there was a signed picture with Frodo and the rest of the gang. When the battery on the ibook died, we put on the soundtrack of The Sound of Music, and gave the kids a map so that they could keep a lookout for each new town we would be coming to. Just after 6 pm, we returned to Kelburn, ending our 7 hour trip back.