My trip to Rotorua and Wellington

I went for a short trip to Rotorua last Saturday. The boy J was my tour guide, he did an amazing job of keeping me entertained the entire time. After picking me up at the airport, we drove to Lake Tarawera. This is the view we had of the lake while we sat at the cafe to have some coffee and cake.

My adorable guide J, playing with my new iPod Nano.

He saw a rainbow over the lake, so I stood here while he tried to capture a photo of the rainbow. It's really hard to see.

The bugger then said I look so out of place in this shot. His words were, "All your friends are going to see this photo and go 'OMG Tash what are you doing in the forest?' " He's such a comedian.

The Redwoods Forest. He took this shot. He's a really talented photographer.

Mucking around at his place before going to see Eagle Eye that night. He said he had been up all morning cleaning his place so that it would be presentable by the time I got there, and therefore he was really pooped. So during the beginning of the movie he actually fell asleep for 10 or 15 mins. I, on the otherhand, was riveted during the entire movie! I thought the show was AWESOME! Shia LaBeouf rocks!

He stole these safety goggles from his workplace. Apparently they put it on when they lance boils and other yucky stuff that splatters. I like to think they use it when dealing with blood spurts from arteries. How awesome. I'm holding his Pocket Emergency Medicine book. I actually read parts of the book, it's really interesting.

The next morning, we got up early for the drive to Wellington. This was the scene that greeted us. Sucky weather.

Anyway, we had a nice brekkie at Milly's before heading off.

When we got there, we picked up his buddy Justin who showed us around Wellington. Our first stop was Te Papa museum.

That's his friend Justin in the background. He's from Miri, too, apparently!

After leaving the museum, we decided to stroll around the city.

Starbucks coffee break! =D

Then we drove to Lower Hutt to send Justin home. Along the way we took random shots of me around the harbour.

Going through the tunnel on the way back to Wellington and to our hotel.

We stayed at the Mercure hotel.

The next day I tell him I'm craving French Toast for brekkie, so we drive along the harbour...

...until we find a nice cafe to have brekkie. We're at Parade Cafe...

...where they have my beloved French Toast. The boy ordered the Big Breakfast.

We did a good job of demolishing our food!

After brekkie, we decide to stroll around the harbour a bit more before heading back to Rotorua.

During the drive back to Rotorua...

...I did a bit of cam-whoring to entertain myself...

...because although the weather was nice to begin with...

...the clouds started looking ominous the further on we drove...

...and it was no big surprise we eventually had rain!

Before reaching Rotorua, we stopped at Huka Waterfalls.

The next day heralded my flight back to Christchurch...

...so we had brunch at Triple 1 Five...

...where I ordered the corn fritters and he had the Caesar salad. The meals were really good!

On our way to the airport we thought we'd stop to visit the Te Puia geyser.

But we couldn't quite find it. Instead we ended up at the Helipro landing site for flights over the volcano.

When we got to the airport we discovered my flight was a little delayed...

...so he entertained himself with my iPod again...

...and chose Justin Timberlake to bring sexy back.

And that concludes my trip to Rotorua and Wellington. Plenty of thanks to my lovely tour guide J for taking time out to bring me around and for doing so much driving on my behalf!