Day 4, March 19, 2016

Saturday began dark and early; we were all up between 0500 and 0600. Breakfast was scrambled eggs, fried up chips from the night before, bacon, toast from bakery bread and garlic nan. Tracy started the non-stop laundry marathon and the boys nested with their iPad's and Nexflix cartoons.

The day only had one thing on the schedule, a trip to Huka Prawn Park,which had Tracy inordinately excited. It's located an hour south of where we are staying.

The prawn park is a shrimp farm that has a restaurant, spawning pools and a path with various activities around it. As part of the entrance fee we also got to fish for prawns. Rhys and Owyn have both been wanting to go fishing. I've told them that they will be bored since fishing means sitting quietly while being patient.

Owny is the shrimp of the family.

Rhys was not thrilled with the picture.

 Barrels with different amounts of water. Use an easy billy to lift them.

An Indiana Jones style escape.

The Waikato River.

The whole prawny family.

Fishing for prawns. They boys can't understand why the prawns aren't jumping onto their hooks. We caught nothing.

The boys soaking their feet and waiting for lunch while looking at the river.

We ate lunch, prawns naturally, and headed back towards Rotura. On the way down we had seen a sign for a hot springs so we ducked in on the way back. The Wai-O-Tapu park is a walking trail around a series of hot springs. We opted to walk all of the trails, which ended up taking about an hour.

The water is 100C.

A tunnel through the bush.

Mama and Owyn.

It has rained on us off and on since we landed. Never enough to really get us wet, more a periodic dampening.

Rhys was the photographer of the two boys.

Owyn finally got to see a waterfall.

A sculpture carved out of a pine log near one of the lakes.

The surface of one of the long flats.

The entire edge of the lake was orange, but we didn't see that color anywhere else.

The steam was so thick here that Tracy almost walked into a ravine.

It was right around here that Owyn announced, "If I have to be afraid of a dinosaur getting me, there'd better be ice cream at the end of this".

The color in this picture doesn't do the green justice. It is a bright lime green. If you fall in you'll definitely come out with super powers.

We did, indeed have some ice cream, in the form of milk shakes at the end of the trek. We also did a little bit of shopping; buying some art for Mama and Daddy and a stuffed animal for Rhys. Owyn wanted a stuffed dog, but as he can get those at home, he was denied

New Zealand may be the most beautiful place I've ever seen. The land is rugged and new, with none of the rounded edges of older lands. High hills burst out of primeval forests of ferns and every greens. The roads are wide and well made and travel is fast. This is a wonderful place so far.