Being a tourist

I have spent the last 5 days at my aunt's holiday home at Lake Tarawera(which is 20mins from Rotorua). It is a lovely place - admire for yourself..

above is the view from the front yard and below is a view from their jetty up toward the house

Normally when we go here we just hang out swimming, kayaking, jet skiing etc... although we did do that this time, we also decided to be tourists in our own country and experience some things that you can't do everywhere in New Zealand. First up Bennett, my Uncle Greg and my cousin Griffin went to skyline skyrides to go up in the gondola and go down on the luge - it really was great fun



If it was indeed so much fun you may wonder why Bennett actually looks like he is off to the dentist instead of a fun day out - the first two dark, grumpy looks are because he doesn't really enjoy me snapping his picture, the last dark look is when we were on our way back up from the luge on the chair lift - chair lifts, it turns out, are not his idea of a good time.
This joyful trip was not enough to satisfy our tourist cravings, oh no we had to have more! So the next day we went off to see some bubbling water and steam, we practised our "ooohhhing" and "aaahhhhing" on the way so we would seem like the genuine article when we arrived, fitting seamlessly in with the other tourists - sadly we didn't practise our ooohs and aahhs in German so we didn't fit in at all. We did however enjoy the views (it is very hard to capture steam, bubbling water and other such geothermal wonders well on film, so enjoy some more cheery poses by Bennett)



being a tourist in your own country really is a good idea. However, I will not be submitting my photos to the New Zealand tourist board to help promote this idea - I am not sure Bennett's enthusiasm really comes across in the photos.