Easter 2019 - Rotorua
We've just got back after a long, wet drive from Rotorua, after a lovely weekend away for Easter. We had a really great time, so I'll try and remember all the things we did!
Friday the kids woke up late, which was fine because it was a holiday anyway. I fed them breakfast then while they were getting ready I took Biscuit to his Holiday Home. I wasn't sure it'd be busy at the Kennels but boy oh boy was I wrong. It was mental, there was basically a queue of people lining up to drop their dog off. But I said goodbye to Biscuit and then headed home, grabbing some coffee on the way. We finished packing up the car and headed up to get a quick McBreakfast, then we were on the road. We drove into Taupo with no problems, stopping quickly to have a walk around the Service Station to stretch our legs. Then we kept driving to Rotorua, stopping at what looked like a very expensive and busy bubbling mud tourist thing. We decided to skip it, seeing as how busy it was. Instead 5 minutes up the road was a free bubbling mud thing, which was really easy to get to and had heaps of bubbling mud, which the kids loved. It was way better than Craters of The Moon that we saw when we last went to meet Ben and Di for our Snow Weekend. After looking at bubbling mud for a bit we drove the rest of the way into Rotorua, checking into our hotel and having a little swim in their naturally hot swimming pool for an hour or so before Ben, Di, Jacob and Abi arrived.
Once they arrived we just hung out for a while then went to Cobb and Co for dinner. It was a long walk there, a nice dinner, then a long walk back. The kids didn't seem to mind, and they loved C&C. Theo mostly loved the fact they had PS2s to play, even though he was too little to understand what was happening or even that half the time he was just playing Demo mode.
The next day (Saturday) we got up nice and early and headed out for breakfast. It was a perfect Sunny day with hardly a cloud in the sky. We found somewhere open and sat down for our bite to eat. It took quite a while to arrive, so by the time it did we had to woof it down fairly quickly before heading 25 minutes out of town to get on the Space Trains! Not really called Space Trains but called RailCrusing. We all went through the safety demonstration and then got into our trains. Ben, Di, Jacob and Abi in one and us in the next one. You hop in and the railcar basically drives itself, you don't have to do anything. There's a computer that drives it and tells you what to look at etc. The voice over stuff wasn't really that interesting though, the kids just enjoyed the fact we were in our own little train going down the track. After 30 minutes drive we got to the next station, where they let you get out for 10 minutes while they turn the cars around on the tracks and then you drive back up to where you started. It was pretty cool.
After Railcrusing we found a Blueberry Farm where we had a lunch, we were there for a couple of hours, they were super busy but we weren't in any rush. I had a really nice Venison and Blueberry pie, sounds a bit odd on paper but it was so fresh and tasty, I really enjoyed it. From there we went home, I took the kids for a play on the playground at the Motel, then had a snooze. Or maybe it was snooze first, I can't recall. Anyway then we had Mexican for dinner and watched a movie called Containgen. I mean we watched that after the kids were in bed asleep upstairs.
Sunday was Easter, yah! The Sun was still shining too which was great for us. The kids were up fairly late (7:30am) but once Beth was up she remembered it was Easter day and started hunting around the Motel room for all the Easter Eggs Sarah had hidden around the place the night before. Once all the Easter hunt was over we went and grabbed a quick breakfast takeaway bite at Fat Dog Cafe, before heading up to Skyline. We'd actually dropped in the day before on the way back from the Blueberry farm, but it was late and it was so busy we skipped it. Sunday morning at 9am was the time to be there though, the Gondola ride up the kids really enjoyed and it wasn't too busy. At the top we got on the Luge all the way to the bottom, first starting out on the Scenic ride. I took Theo, Sarah took Beth. They LOVED it. We were a little nervous that Beth really wouldn't like it, but she thought it was the greatest thing. She called it the ZoomZoom. We did 4 Luge rides overall, it was so much fun! The chairlift was great, I thought I'd freak out but mostly I was just worried that whichever child was sitting next to me would do something silly and slide out. But they didn't. After the scenic ride we did a couple of Intermediate rides, which is faster and more exciting. The kids certainly enjoyed the faster rides a bit more, I'm glad we didn't crash or anything, the whole thing for them was just Zoom Zoom excitement. I'd have loved go on the Advanced course, but you weren't allowed to take your child down on that one, it was Adults Only.The queues were getting longer and longer each time we got back up to the top, I'm glad we were there early because it was mental by the time we left, people everywhere, people asked helpers where should they go etc etc.
Once we were finished at Skyline we headed off for a lovely lunch at a place down by the Lakefront. It was a great cafe, kid friendly but really nice food and great service. Once we'd finished lunch it was time for a snooze, then I took the kids down to the local park that's got hot springs in it to look at some bubbling water. It was pretty boring, but the kids had their scooters so just scootered around for a while. Then we went back to have a swim in the Motel Pool for an hour or so with Jacob and Abi, then we had some Burgerfuel for dinner and sat in the hot tub for a while after the kids were in bed.
Today it was get up, pack up and then have a proper sit down breakfast at the Fat Dog, then back to the Motel to pack and leave. We met up at the 3D painting place, they have all these really big paintings and if you get the angle etc right it looks like a 3D real image! Some of the photos we took with the kids turned out really well, Beth really looks like she's shooting up on a waterspout etc.
Then it was time to say goodbye to Ben, Di, Jacob and Abi, which of course caused a lot of tears for Beth. Then the big drive back home, which was a nightmare due to the extremely heavy rain. But we made it safe and sound back home, got the fire going and went to get Biscuit from his holiday home. He seemed very happy, washed and they'd clipped his nails. So that was a good.
Overall it was a great Easter weekend! The kids had a great time, really enjoyable. The only downer for me was that I got a cold on Thursday evening and it hung around the whole weekend making me feel a little bit miserable. But otherwise it was great, we had a really good time!
Here's some of the photos I took from the weekend away.
Tim