Tom arrives and the journey begins!

Bright and early on Monday morning Tom arrived after the most horrendous layover in China, some 23 hours long! Anyway, he arrived safely and we settled in to have a low key day. The main attraction of the first day was the Christmas dinner. Mary-Ellen slaved away in the kitchen to create a delicious roast chicken, home made stuffing, vegetables, potatoes, and the piece-de-resistance, a homemade apple pie which was promptly finished off the next morning. It was a positively delicious meal, that after consuming enough to keep us full most of the night, we took off to the local theatre to view "The Hobbit" in New Zealand, thus crossing off the first thing on the list, see a lord of the rings movie in the very heart of middle-earth. Not confident that Auckland is that heart, but still in New Zealand. Tired, we managed to get through a few games of Skip-bo before heading to a much need

ed sleep.

The next morning we arose, woke up snoring beauty from the futon and packed up for the excursion that would take us to a few of our first New Zealand attractions. We headed south towards a mountain range located in the Tangariro National Park. We stopped in Hamilton so that Tom could get a taste of a real hamburger at Burger Fuel. Our next big stop was lake Taupo, the ancient volcanic crater filled with water and the largest lake in New Zealand. We tried to stop frequently to let Tom stretch his legs since he spent more than enough time squashed in an airplane seat. One of the more notable pit-stops, the lookout on lake Taupo gave us some spectacular views of water, sky, land, and the mountains that bridged the gap between the heavens and earth.

  After some ridiculous photo shoots, we moved on into the mountains. We had some very clear signs that we were on the right path when there was visible steam coming out of the mountain side. Billowing up and spilling out of cracks in the ground, wisping around rocks and into the air. Our first glimpse at the geothermal activity that continues to occur in this area.

We said goodbye to the smoking mountainsides and continued onward in the diminishing light to locate our "basecamp". Tired and hungry we pulled into a holiday park (campground for those in North America), and set up for a well needed rest. We put up the tent, started our supper of pasta, and pulled on some warmer clothes. The higher altitude brought some colder evening weather and while we were working hard, the flat visitors were slacking off! These were part of a grade 3 school project on Geography that Mary-Ellen and agreed to help on by taking them around the world with her and then mailing them home!

After supper, there was still a bit too much light, being summer here, so we ventured out on a walk to see if there was anything nearby worth checking out. We didn't go too far, just across the highway where an old path, possibly for logging, was starting to grow over so we took a walk down. Much to our delight, there was a bit of running water that meandered past providing lush fern growth and a few wildflowers, still open in the fading light.

After the walk we prepared ourselves for some sleep, as we had a big day planned for the first day of 2014. Tom and I stayed up, probably not till midnight, we watched the last light of day fade over the treeline and the stars emerge despite the bright light from one of the cabins.

Not a bad end to a long year, ushering in a year that is bound to be full of wonderful new adventures and discoveries, some of which were to be made in the next few days. Mary-Ellen and I have a lot to post so it will take a while. Bare with us as we try to get it all up. Stay tuned!