Christian & Mari Down Under: Rotorua & Taupo III

Howdy people! A minor update on our travelling progress. At the time being we are in Taupo, where we arrived from Rotorua around noon. Yesterday was spent mountainbiking in the Redwood forest of Rotorua. It was the 3rd time we were there, and so our "bike dealer" introduced us to a whole new network of tracks in which we'd never set wheel in before. It was wickedly awesome, as always! After the mountainbiking we set off to a nearby hot spring to chill out and relax our soar muscles. But to our big surprise the hot spring had become very cold - so after a quick bath we just went back to our YHA backpacker hostel.

Today we've spent tramping up and down [some weird Maori name], a mountain, in Taupo rising 1088 meters above sea level and bathing in some other hot spring that we've already visisted twice before. Sweet as!

Tomorrow we will hire sea kayaks and explore Lake Taupo. One of the main attractions of Taupo - a 10m high Maori stone carving on a cliff - is accessible by kayak only - hopefully we'll be able to bring you pictures from that place tomorrow.

We'll probably stay in Taupo until Friday, after which we haven't quite decided what to do. Maybe Napier, maybe some other place. We'll head back to Auckland on Sunday, as we need a few days to shut down bank accounts, sell our car (we've been working on that for a month now, it turns out that selling a 1996 Vectra is everything but easy), order transcripts, clean the flat and most importantly welcome the next generation of IndOkere til Auckland; Eirik, Erlend and Kristin arrive on July the 3rd!