What a wonderful world...

In two months I've been blessed by a wonderful group of friends here who planned an awesome birthday trip to Waiheke Island. If you have to turn thirty, that has got to be the best place to do it. Pouring rain overnight gave way to sunny skies on the ferry trip over and within 45 minutes of leaving Auckland we were docked in Waiheke.

I was pretty much captivated from the start. It felt like a world away from rainy Auckland...an oasis where the sun shined warm upon your face. We rented a van and headed to Stonyridge Vineyards.

The patio looked out over the grape vines to rolling green hills dotted with sheep. Gorgeous. After tasting a flight of white wines and sampling their bruschetta, we headed to Mudbrick Vineyards.

I absolutely love this place. I want to kick out the owners and turn it into my house and live there forever drinking their wine.

Lauren, Cindy, Kenny, Shannon and David...my fellow Americans in New Zealand...and a great group of friends!

Heavenly views combined with lavender fragrance...

Next we headed to Cable Bay vineyards for the sunset and a scrumptious dinner of New Zealand lamb.

Great food, great wine, great friends, great location. I couldn't ask for anything more. Thank you.

Over hills and vales...the Waimangu Volcanic Valley

After a night of torrential rainfall (its gotta be monsoon season here) there was a glimpse of blue in the sky Sunday morning and I thought I'd tempt fate and head to the Waimangu Volcanic Valley...silly me...

You start out at the top of the ridge and descend into the valley...here is a view of Echo Crater and Frying Pan Lake from the hillside. I love the steaminess!

Here you have Frying Pan Lake up close, and looking up at Cathedral Rocks below...

But as you can see, it was quickly clouding over...turns out that just increases the steaminess!

Inferno Crater...with a temperature of 300 degrees F and a pH of 2.1, I don't think I'll go swimming in that one!
Crossing the marble terraces...

On the way to Lake Rotomahana
Where there were a ton of black swans!
So, another soggy but pretty cool day.

The Devil went down to...Rotorua!

So, at one point in time over the past two weeks, I worked overnight 4 out of 6 nights. I cannot actually tell you how or why it happened...but at one point I was flown to another hospital to drill into a kids head and place a drain, then brought back to Starship to suck a clot out of a kids head. When all that's happening, I kind of lose track of time.

Therefore, when I finally left the hospital carpark at 7:30 Friday night, I hit the road to Rotorua with Shannon and David. I thankfully slipped into the back seat and slept most of the way. We awoke to rain Saturday morning but didn't let that dampen our spirits as we grabbed our suits and headed off to the natural hot pools. Kerosene creek was the prettiest...but not warm enough for me.

So we headed to the bridge where two streams (one cold, one hot) merge and you can move further up or downstream until you find the perfect spot. Awesome!

After we raised our core body temps a few degrees, we headed to the Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal Wonderland, home of the devil and his playground. It was drizzling when we started...

then it switched to pouring rain about the time we got to the devil's inkpots...

So we took shelter from the storm at the views over Artist's Palette...the cold and the rain made it all steamy...

We crossed the Terrace then trekked through the Sacred Forest...

And onwards to Frying Pan Flat and Lake Ngakoro

Bird's Nest Crater
And Lake Ngakoro which really can't be too vile because there are ducks swimming in it...

The champagne pool was gorgeous...but you only caught a glimpse of it when the wind blew the steam away...like a hidden surprise beneath the steam...

And we passed by Devil's Bath on the way out of the park...we definitely needed a hot shower and a few logs on the fire after this afternoon!

I'll post on the Waimangu Volcanic Valley tomorrow night...need to get some sleep before work tomorrow! You never know what that will bring!