Our Trip to Taupo

This post is old but I thought I would post it anyways. I have not been on the computer much so sorry it has been so long since I have posted anything. Anyways, on October 9th Dad rented a car and Dad, Jillian, Emmaline, and Nicolea went down to Taupo, so heres the post about it.

We started the day early and by 6:30 a.m. we were on the road. We had wonderful home made muffins for breakfast and in about three hours we were in Taupo. We picked up the bike, we had come to pick up, in short order. Then we went and strolled through town and Dad bought us girls some wonderful pastry's at a bakery. We then went to see the lake; Lake Tapuo is 100 kilometers around and is the biggest lake in all of Oceania. It was some what of a rainy day and as they say around here "it was spittin". We drove around the lake a little ways and then stopped and walked on a path by the lake for a little while, but is was beginning to really rain now so we soon returned back to the car. We continued to enjoy our drive around the lake until we noticed the car was on empty, so we headed back for town praying we would not run out of gas. The Lord was gracious and we were able to get gas before we ran out. It was then almost lunch time know and Dad took us to Subway for lunch. It tasted great and we really enjoyed it as we had not had any since before we left the states and that is one of my favorites! And like Dad says that is the only American food here that tastes the same here! After lunch we headed for Bethlehem, which is over by the Pacific Ocean, to pick up something. It was a nice drive by Lake Rotaru and through the hills. The ferns were so interesting as they were so big that they looked like palm trees! After that we went to the beach. We did get out on the beach as it had stopped raining for a few minutes and it was really windy. After that we stopped at a Dairy ( little stores that they have in every town here.In the US they arre called convenience stores ) and got some treats, I really enjoyed the M&Ms, HA HA. Then we drove home, it did stop raining after a while and part of the drive home was clear. We arrived home about 5:30. It was such a fun day! We all enjoyed all of it!!!

I put this video together of our trip. I changed it and worked with it enough that I think I decided I just needed to post it. It is only 2 min. and 47 sec. So enjoy!!!

Today's Adventure

~ Today Mrs. George next door had to go to Auckland to renew her Australian passport (she is Australian!). She invited Mom but she did not have time to go all day so she let Emmaline and I go with her. We had a wonderful day, Thanks Mrs. George for taking us along! We left a little after 10:00 and we caught the 11:05 train. We got to Britomart (the train station up in the city) around noon. We started by going to Australian passport office first only to find out that the picture quality was not good. So we went to a pharmacy and Mrs. George got her pictures done again. We then went and browsed through Stevens, a kitchen ware store, next we went to McDonalds for lunch. Wow, it had been a long time since we had eaten there, almost six months. Next we went to Witcoulls and the streets were so crowed when we went outside, ya I guess that is part of a big city! Walking back from Witcoulls it started to rain but thankfully we were able to stay undercover by the buildings. We then went back to the Australian office, and when we got there we found a very long line of people waiting to go through the check point. Thankfully almost all the people were going to the visa office so the line in the passport office was not long. After that we ran through the rain across the street to the train station. We went home the eastern route so that was neat as that is the route that goes along the water for a ways and we had never been that way, unfortunately it was raining so I was not able to get any good pictures:( When we got to the train station in Papakura it was still raining very hard and we got a little wet as we had parked a ways away from the train station because it was so packed with cars. On the way home we stopped at the Strawberry Shack and Mrs, George got a coffee and bought us home-made ice cream. We got chocolate ice cream with crushed strawberries all the way through it, It was great!!! We had a wonderful day!!!

The Britomart train station.

The Britomart train station, again.

A Train in the station.

The front of the building you came into when you walk up and out of the underground station.

Looking out over the water from the building that the passport office is in.

Another view of the Harbor. Our neighbor says the harbor looks really crowded when one of the big ships come in.

This is where we ate lunch in the mall.

Emmaline and Mrs. George enjoying there lunch!

Mrs. George!!! We love you!!!

She said she did not see this picture on the blog, so here it is!!!

Not a good picture but I thought it was funny that Wendy's was pink!

Looking down a street in Auckland.

Looking up another street.

Yes, they have good ice cream here!

P.S. I took some pictures out the windows, or I should say tried to, but they did not come out good because it was raining.