Group Dinner Out

Katie & Brian

Brooke & Kyle

Anouska & Her Mom (Susie)

We had a great evening out to dinner. Perfect weather for dinning outside. This was Brooke & Kyle's first night in Auckland. They just flew in from Sydney. Tomorrow starts all of the wedding festivities. The rehearsal starts at 10:30am and then all of the tuxes will have to be picked up. Greg scheduled a pedicure for me tomorrow afternoon. Come to find out all of the groomsmen are have a spa afternoon as well. That ought to be really funny!! Never, ever thought I would see Greg come anywhere near a spa. Then tomorrow evening we will be having a rehearsal dinner at one of Anouska's Aunts Home in Auckland.

Well I better hit the hay. It's almost 1am here. We have to get up early in the morning to return the rental car.

Tane Mahute - Big Tree in the Woods

So after leaving the Bay of Islands area, we decided to head back down the West Coast of New Zealand. We drove up the East coast this morning and thought we would really get good bang for our buck by checking out what the West coast had to offer. So we heard about some huge tress and the rain forest and thought that sounded interesting.

So this is Greg and I in front of the "big tree" or Tane Mahute. This tree is ~42 feet in diameter. It is enormous and the picture doesn't even do it justice. The drive was beautiful. The rain forrest is literally right next to the road. We all decided that my forarms from driving will have to be sore tomorrow. We haven't been on a curvery section of road. I can't even describe how curvy one road could be. It was a long day on the road, but worth every minute!

Bruce in front of the "big tree"

Bay of Islands - Hole in Rock

So this morning we decided to get up early and head up to the Bay of Island. Took us about 3 hours to get up there from Auckland. Pretty drive on the way up. We have now learned that there are no straight roads in New Zealand. Decided to take a speed boat ride to the Hole in the Rock.

This is a picture of Bruce (Josh - the groom's dad), Greg and I. This picture was taken right before they drove the boat through the hole. It was really impressive. There were 6 foot swells while we were out there today. It definitely took some good boat driving to get us through. The water in the Bay of Islands is so brillant. Very hard to describe and I am sure the pictures don't do it justice.

This is a picture from the back of the boat called the Excitor before we drove through the hole. You can see how rough the water is. We were really lucky that we actually were able to drive through it. Sometimes the seas get so rough that water actually hits the top of the hole. It was a very fun, very fast boat ride. This area of New Zealand is absolutely stunning!

Wai - O -Tapu

So this morning we thought we would check out the Lady Knox geyser just outside Rotorua. Greg and I were discussing how cool geyser are because they naturally blow and who unpredictable they can be, etc. So the Lady Knox geyser goes off everyday at 10:15am, pretty predictable, huh. Well comes to find out they actually make the geyser blow by adding a surfactant. They are stilling really intriguing, but now Greg thinks that every geyser is operated by some small man still in the bush. Guess we will have to check out Yellowstone and see some real geysers.

This is a picture of me in front of a hot pool beautiful colors.

Greg and I on our hike around the park. There was all sorts of neat things to see like sulfer caves, bubbling mud pots, and geysers.