One thing we HAD to do if we ever got the chance on this trip was….. Surfing! We called last night and they happened to have another person arrange a lesson as well! Discovery Surfing nz.
An hour away at Mt Maunganui north of Rotorua in Tauranga, we joined the 1130 lesson at the Main Beach with another person from Seattle.
Got some nice warm wetsuits and went with Tully for some basic instructions and tips to help us along. We also practiced how to stand on the board once we caught a wave. And explained what a rip in the surf was… Something with the sand mounds underwater creating the white wave after hitting it etc…….
It was a great experience and so exhausting. The amount of salt water that ended up in my mouth didn’t help either… The waves were pretty rough too, to me anyways. We were only taught how to drag our board into the waves and jump on, not how to paddle into them. Tully was very helpful and encouraging. By an hour I could barely push myself up on the board and wiped out instead. Sometimes I just rode the wave out on my knees 😛 so glad that we got to try it after the Bondi beach incident. Getting out of the water was another thing. There wasn’t much sun and was actually very windy so basically, freezing. But well worth it.
Heading back we were deciding how to divide up activities from tonight and tomorrow morning, as our last morning. It was between Zorb Rotorua and Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. And since we were already a bit wet, zorbing it was! Instead of lunch.
Not too far away from Rotorua, we got there and no one else was zorbing, a quiet day. Apparently its the low season on this side of the world because its fall weather. Cold.
Rosanna went through the ‘straight’ zorbing path while I took the ‘zig-zag’ which rolled me around like crazy, awesome. Zydro – with warm water in the ball too, so we also came out of this activity soaking wet and oh so cold afterwards. Again, worth it. Hahaha…
Aaaaand dinner. Had a large bento that I could barely finish. Yum. Rotorua has its fair share of jap and korean restaurants/stores/people, maybe a bit more korean actually…
Anyways. Tomorrow we head to Wai-o-Tapu and Waitomo! Then Auckland International Airport to stay the night and check-in for the 7am flight starting our journey home. Whee.
Wetsuit!
Zorbs!
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