DAY ONE: Auckland to Rotorua

The plane ride over was horrendous.

Ok, it wasn’t that bad. I was on a Boeing 747 (aka a small building) sitting in the middle of a row with elderly folk on either side of me. I started watching The Surrogates on my individual tv but the screen was way too dark. The funny thing is I watched it for a good 15 minutes thinking it was just a dark scene ha. The food was good and the conversation invigorating. Ok, that’s not true either. I guess I slept a lot because before I knew it there was only 45 minutes of the flight left. And that’s when I figured out how to change the lighting of my tv. Ironic.

A big plus side, I was able to get my sticky hands on something I really needed; a mess kit. Yeah, I didn’t pack a mess kit but when we got our dinners on the plane they also gave us some heavy duty plastic ware. The second I laid my eyes on the plastic, yet durable knife, fork, and spoon, I knew I would be sneaking them away with me. They’ve served me well…no pun intended.

This was the longest day of my life. Sleeping on the plane didn’t really help my body think it had been another day so it still felt like January 12^th, although it was now the 14^th. We got out of the airport at sunrise and into the vans. Drove across beautiful country from Auckland to Rotorua.

We got into camp by noon after being lost for a few hours and ate pizza before heading to the lake. I kayaked from the tire swing at camp to the lake and back before lunch then walked back out after lunch where we all played Frisbee in the long shallow lake (which we later found out was contaminated because a dead cow had been found in the water haha. No one got sick, don’t worry).