North Island - New Zealand

Our trip to New Zealand started out with a very long plane ride. Total travel time was about 20 hours. Thank goodness the plane had personal entertainment devices in each seat with movies, TV shows, and games. This helped keep me entertained when I wasn’t trying to get some sleep. We arrived in Auckland at 5:45am and our two week tour of the country started at 9:00am at Auckland Harbor. We got off the plane and hit the ground running. It was tons of fun meeting up with Mariah and Nick and seeing them again. Listed below are some of the highlights from the North Island.
One day we were able to visit White Island which is home to an active Volcano. To get to the island we had to travel 31 miles by boat.


The Bill Beesley Family! (We were short Mike and we missed him a lot, however, we were glad to have Mandy, Zane's girlfriend, on the trip with us.)
L-R Top: Rebecca, Me, Dad (Bill), Heather, Will, Zane, Mandy. Bottom: Nick, Mariah.


Mariah and I. While on the island we sported these dashing yellow hats (for safety's sake.)

It was cool to walk around the island and learn about the island's history and the volcano. The last major eruption was in 2001. Since New Zealand is in the Ring of Fire and we were on an island with an active volcano, I was ready to make a mad dash to the sea, but lucky we were safe and we just enjoyed our time on there.

One of my favorite activities on the North Island was staying in the River Valley and river rafting on Rangitikei River. The river rafting was a lot of fun. Mariah, Nick, Rebecca and I all went in a raft together. About five minutes into rafting while going down our first rapid, I fell in. :-) It was a great way to start the trip. After that I had lots of fun trying to push everyone in and getting the other rafts wet.



Are we having fun yet!?!














Some of the other adventures we experienced on the North Island were: sailing on the Waitemata Harbor, going off roading in 4 x 4 vehicles in the New Zealand bush, experiencing a traditional Maori celebration with food, dance and storytelling, stopping at Thermal Valley and seeing mud pools, mineral terraces and steaming lakes and visiting Kapiti Island where we hiked around trying to spot endangered New Zealand birds.

















Taking it easy!