July 3 - Auckland to Rotorua

We took a bus tour around Auckland this morning. It was raining as we started, but it wasn't long before the sun came out and it turned into a beautiful day.

We traveled past the space needle and across the Auckland Bridge.  We also went out to the Michael Joseph Savage Memorial, which afforded a wonderful view of the bay and skyline. Savage was the Labor Prime Minister.

We also drove around the War Memorial when we saw our first rainbow. After lunch, on our way to Rotorua, we were treated to several more beautiful rainbows.

Apparently,  a new tunnel opened yesterday in Auckland.  It's 1.6 miles long and was quite the talk if the area. We were able to travel through it, too!

We stopped in Huntley for some extra special ice cream. The preferred flavor was Hokey Pokey; a vanilla with honeycomb bits in it. Quite tasty!!

The drive from Huntley to Rotorua was about two hours. It took us through beautiful farmland. New Zealand has an abundance of dairy cattle; even more than they have sheep. It really reminded me of Ohio.

We stopped  for a few minutes in a little town called Torah which had a corrugated steel plant. They had all sorts of sculptures throughout the the town made of the steel including a dog, sheep and a statue of Jesus. The town has a population of 600 and 0% unemployment.

We arrived at Rotorua shortly before dinner. As we approached the town, we could see the steam from the thermal activity. In a few days,  we'll have the opportunity to swim in a thermal pool. But first we on to Tui Ridge and Full On.

Just a reminder: there is no internet at Tui, or the marae,  so the blog and Facebook page will "go dark" when we're there.















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