Change In Plans

Greetings and Happy Easter from Taupo! The sun is shining brightly, our view over Lake Taupo and the snow-covered volcanic mountains on the far shore is spectacular, the Easter bunny managed to find our kids and give them a few gifts and chocolates.

All is well, here in New Zealand.

India, in her role as the Easter bunny’s helper, has been hauling chocolate eggs and small gifts around the world since October. This level of planning, and her commitment to our kids’ childhoods just blows me away.  She also recruited Ginny to bring some things.

We drove from Waimarama up to Taupo on Good Friday afternoon. That morning, Ginny and India had gone for another long run (Ginny clutching her sore shoulder protectively while she ran), and then Zola and I went surfing. Zola was shredding the foamies, which was wonderful for me to see. I was using a long board belonging to Pete’s 45-kilogram (maybe) wife, so it was a little harder than expected to get my nearly 95-kilogram self out of the water. As with all good surfing days, there were a few moments of exhilaration and a few moments of sheer terror. The waves in the back were big.

On the 2-hour drive north to Taupo, we passed scores of vintage Volkswagen buses and Beetles, headed in the other direction. There must be a rally or show to the south. It was cool to see them all on the road.

As we drove, we listened to the highlights of the pop CD that Ginny bought over and over. My abiding memory of being in the car will be Tallulah’s joyous expression as she sings along with Taylor Swift “Marry me, Juliet, you’ll never have to be alone. I love you, and that’s all that I really know!”

Zola continually requests Britney Spears’ “Circus.”

Before we even got to our rented house, we went for a ride on the Huka Falls jet boat. It was not as scenic as Shotover Canyon, down in Queenstown, but the river is deeper and wider, so the jet-boat driver could get a lot crazier. We got completely drenched, and both kids laughed hysterically during the whole ride. We got our first smell of the sulfurous waters that this part of New Zealand is famous for. I attributed the smell, incorrectly, to the huge industrial facility that the jet boats roar through. None of us felt entirely comfortable swallowing the water that got sprayed into our mouths.

I fell asleep almost immediately after we checked into the house, still feeling the effects of the 12-hour time difference with Switzerland. Aside from a frost-bitten middle finger (the nail is black, as if I had voted in an Iraqi election), I seem to have otherwise recovered from the Haute Route trip. The rest of the family roused me long enough for us to have dinner, but then I was completely out again.

On Saturday morning, the kids and I picked up India and Ginny in the center of Taupo, about 12 kilometers from the house. After an unbelievably greasy breakfast, we drove out of town to an attraction called “Craters of the Moon.” There is a lot of geothermal activity in this part of New Zealand, and “Craters” is a self-guided walking path through a sulfurous, steaming landscape. We took a lot of pictures of ourselves holding our noses and walking through heavy steam. The best spot along the path is called “Mud Crater,” which looks like a huge, stew-filled cauldron, bubbling and sputtering away. For once, both kids paid a lot of attention to the signs reading “stay on the path.”

For the main event of the day, we drove an hour north to the town of Rotorua, which we found out is the most popular tourist destination on the North Island.

As we drove through Rotorua itself, we found many steaming, bubbling little craters in the parks and alongside the road. The entire town smells like rotten eggs, though somehow not unpleasantly. This attribute was not noted in any of the tourism brochures. Maybe “Rotorua” is Maori for rotten egg.

We had come to Rotorua to try out yet another uniquely New Zealand adrenaline sport, called Zorbing. A Zorb is a big (3-meter high) transparent rubber ball, with a smaller capsule ball suspended inside it by hundreds of elastic, connective wires. The rider sits in the capsule, and is rolled down a giant hill at high speeds. Awesome!

As we found out, there are two varieties of Zorbing, wet and dry. Zola did the wet version, where they partially fill the capsule ball with warm water, and the rider sloshes around while the ball rolls along beneath him/her. Zola thought this was pretty cool.

I'M INSIDE THE INNER BALL

I did the dry Zorb (the Zorbit), where I was strapped into the capsule, and went upside down with each revolution of the ball. It was pretty ridiculous, and I laughed the whole way down the hill. The weight limit of the Zorb was 100 kilograms, which didn’t make sense until I was actually flying down the hill. My nearly 100-kilogram weight was stretching the connective wires to their limit, and I was actually hitting the ground with my body on the big bumps. No permanent damage, but a rougher ride than expected. Ginny’s sore shoulder and India’s sore lower back kept them on the sidelines, cheering for us. In retrospect, that was probably a good decision.

After we got back from Rotorua, we tried to watch “Sound of Music,” on DVD, but the audiovisual technology defeated me. Instead, we watched Cameron Diaz and Jude Law fall in love in “Holiday.” Zola asked me at least 20 times whether I thought Cameron Diaz was pretty.

This is our last day in Taupo, so we are going for a hike on the volcanoes, and enjoying the sunshine. New Zealand is very beautiful, but we have been cold and damp for most of our time here.

Tomorrow we are driving five hours north, to Bay of Islands. My father said this might be his favorite place in the world. We are looking forward to seeing it.