On the drive down to Rotorua, for a while I felt we could have been in coastal northern CA.  Rolling hills, some palm trees, really green right now.  No vineyards, though.  Cattle, horses, goats.  Corn, some berry farms.  Then the road turned higher, into what they would call mountains, I imagine, though nothing like the Rockies.  Rotorua is on a large lake (a caldera) rimmed by small mountains.  Weather is very pleasant, 70s during the day and a light jacket in the evening.  

The hot springs felt great! We also managed to find some available tennis courts – and it was next-to-impossible to hit the ball long. But the bounce off the surface was slow and shoulder height. Very strange!

New Zealand (called “En-Zed”) feels like a small community. Rotorua has about 60,000 people and it is number 20 on the list of cities in the country. Lots of locally-owned small business even though NZ has been infiltrated by McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Subway, and we even saw a K-Mart.

I like it here. People are friendly, the weather is great, everyone spends time outdoors, it’s a casual environment (no such thing as “no shoes, no service”. We’ve even seen adults barefoot in stores). After a couple of quiet days, we are ready for more tomorrow.