almost a week down... (cont'd)

After Auckland was when the real fun began (which was yesterday).  We drove south to Raglan, which has the longest left (wave) in the world.  Dad was really excited about this because he's a goofy foot, so we were trying to get down to this place called Indicators and turned down Willy Wackin' Road (we've been told if the Maoris catch you taking abalone from a private reef they chop your willy off?), which was basically a crazy dirt road that was mostly covered by jungle and guarded by a dog that wasn't scared of getting run over.  We go carefully down this road, and all of a sudden the road just stops and turns into jungle at this guys house.  It was scary, so we start to back up and get out of the place.  Brad was driving and stopped and said that he didn't think he could do it.  Immediately dad goes, oh come on! and jumps out of the car and gets into the driver's seat.  Mind you, this is the guy we haven't allowed to drive after almost getting us in a car crash straight out of the gate in the driveway of the car rental place in Auckland.  So he starts backing up and isn't looking (obviously), and within the first 10 feet runs into a tree.  I yell tree! he slams on the brakes and into the tree.  Now we have a dent in the car and not a very redeeming moment for dad.  That was.... interesting, but we fixed the dent for the most part.  So Raglan was fun?  Question mark?  Anywaaaaay on to Kawhia (pronounced KAR-fee-uh).  To get there we had to drive down an "unsealed" road (unpaved) for 20 km, and mom was super freaked out about that.  On the way to Kawhia we stopped at Bridal Veil Falls, which took a whole 5 minutes to walk to (supposed to be a 10 minute walk), then 10 seconds to walk to the viewpoint (supposedly a 1 minute walk) then back to the top of the falls, a total of 20 seconds, which was marked as a 2 minute walk (see a pattern?).  The falls were AMAZING and I have pictures that I will soon post!  From the falls, the road to Kawhia turned out to not be so bad and was VERY scenic.  For example, I saw a falcon/hawk bird eating a rodent ten feet from the road, it was intense.  Finally we make it to Kawhia, find the beach, walk over a dune, and dig a big hole in the sand.  Weird, right?  NO!  Because this beach is actually a thermal spot and at low tide you can dig a hole that fills up with warm water that you can just hang out in!  Coming here I thought the water was going to be luke warm, but when we started digging we had a hard time because the water was burning our feet!  It was crazy, but luckily some people next to us told us to dig a cold channel our main tub, and after that it was awesome.  We then waited until the tide flooded our hot tub and we had to leave, then watched the sunset from the sand dune we walked over.  From there (dark, again, before we had a room) we drove first back into Kawhia, then to Te Awamutu, then finally to Hamilton after giving up on finding a decent room at the aforementioned.  No here's where the fun starts.  It's late and we need a room, so we're looking.  Dad says that there's a place called Chloe's that's supposed to be nice, but he keeps pronouncing it Chole's, like some sort of mexican restaurant or something.  Brad and I think this is absolutely hilarious and are still cracking up about it.  Anyway, we don't end up staying at "Chole's" and stay at some other, kinda shoddy place.  Immediately we rearrange the couch so it's in a more appropriate spot, then continue with our night.  Dad and Mom go to bed and eventually Brad and I lay down in our beds, when I spot a bone next to Brad's bed.  "Um, Brad, there's a bone next to your bed"  Brad looks over.... "I'm gonna try to ignore that Harmony.  I don't want to know who butchered a chicken in this room."  bahahah we think the bone is HILARIOUS!  It was "choice."  The beds were as well; we called them the extra-firm tofu beds, or Mario bros spring boards, or jello beds.  They were crazy.  The whole situation was just pretty great.  Anyway, the next day we get up, go to a cafe for breakfast, then leave towards Matamata, aka HOBBITON!!  Brad and I went on the tour and it was super cool, I have lots of pictures of it that I'll post later, I promise!  It was sooo cool.... oh man.  For sure.  At this farm we also got to a sheep being shorn and I got to hold a baby lamb, have it suck my thumb and feed it from a bottle!  It was so cute.  From there we had lunch at some bar and eatery, which was yummy, then came to Rotorua and found an AWESOME place to stay, and here we are!  So everything's going super duper and New Zealand is awesome.  Oh, and a few weird things: shrimp cocktails aren't shrimp cocktails here, they're actually a few pieces of shrimp in a tub of tomato sauce and mayonnaise (dad found out the hard way, bahahah!).  Tomato sauce is catsup!  The pastries here are awesome!  Maori pronunciation is really hard (wh="f" sound, among other things).  The thong song is HILARIOUS.  Marmite looks disgusting but I have yet to try it, but I'll post a video of it for sure.  Does anyone know what a Pom is?  because the cellphone "guy" here says "so easy, even us Poms understand it." ???  The "best" fish and chips place charges for tomato sauce, my laptop is broken, this irish pub in Auckland had a live band, and the Student IT store in Auckland can totally suck it for trying to screw me out of my money, but the good fellows at Logical Systems rock!  

Okay, that's it.  I'm sorry it's so long but I haven't had free internet for the past four days and I had to catch up on everything.  KASSI I LOVE YOU AND HERE IS YOUR SHOUT-OUT!  I CAN'T WAIT TO SEE YOU AGAIN!  And I miss you Darlee and Rikki, Taylor, Ean, Leia, Tiger, and I guess Millie too, as long as she's not acting too sketchy.  Okay I'm off!  Hope your having a good Tuesday, I know mine has been nice!  ( :