I wasn't sure what today would bring. I knew Krista still wasn't feeling well and I tossed and turned all night long coughing. When we got our wakeup call at 6:00 am I asked Krista if she wanted to go on our excursion today and she did so that meant I needed to get up and get moving. It is my job to get my shower first so I can get out of the way and she can have all the time she needs to get ready. I got my shower in a hurry (with no hot water) and jumped out as quick as I could. That shower was freezing! I told Krista that I couldn't get hot water in the bathtub but I had it in the sink. We also have a shower stall and I told her she might try that. Well Krista took her shower and I asked her if she had to use the shower stall and she said no -- the bathtub. Well this puzzled me because I took a cold shower this morning and last night. I tried everything I could think of to get hot water to no avail. Krista just calmly said you have to push the red button in. Of all the cruises I have taken on Holland America I had never been told I had to push the red button in to get hot water. I guess I have been lucky all these years.
Our breakfast was delivered around 6:30 am. I usually don't eat a heavy breakfast. I just have cereal and a bowl of apricots and coffee. This morning I didn't even drink the coffee.
We had an excursion where we had to meet in the Vista Show Lounge at 8:20 and the tour left at 8:30. Just as we were disembarking it started raining. This thrilled me because a big part of our tour was outside today. We were going to Hell's Gate & Rotorua highlights. The first place we drove to was Hell's Gate and it took us a while to get there. In fact this woman on the bus went and asked the bus driver when we were going to have a restroom break and he said it would be about 20 minutes. She was sitting right across from me and I could tell she needed to go bad. After 20 minutes we weren't there yet so she went back to the front of the bus and told him he had to find somewhere for her to go to the restroom. He finally found somewhere and we had to wait on her about 10 minutes. I am not sure how far from the road she had to walk to get into the place. When she got back on the bus she was all happy and sat down next to her husband and said I had too much coffee too late this morning. I would have been so embarrassed to do something like that but I guess if you've gotta go, you've gotta go. About 10 minutes later we arrived at our destination.
Hell's Gate is a Geo-thermal reserve that you walk through seeing all of these boiling hot springs that smell like sulphur. I have seen things like this before in Portugal and more recently in Iceland. Both of those times we had guides that drove us to each location. Well this was a walking tour! I did most of it but turned around and came back right before they finished it. It was so hot and I was starving and thought I was going to get sick. I just wanted to get back to some cool air. They had a little gift shop there and I thought maybe they would have some crackers or something that I could buy but all they had was ice cream and sandwiches so I opted for nothing. I just drank on my bottle of water.
After this stop we went to Rainbow Springs. We had a guided tour here also and it was also a walking tour. We were running short of time so we just sped through things and once again I was really light headed from being so hungry. They showed us different kinds of fish and also a kiwi house. We weren't allowed to take pictures in the kiwi house but I did see a couple of them in there. It was very dark in there so it was hard to pick them out. At the end of this tour we had a choice of riding a log ride or having a snack of coffee and scones. I opted for the snack. I probably should have gone on the log ride. The coffee was the worst in the world and the scones were pre packaged in the Civil War days I think.
Our next stop was to Mitai Village for a Maori cultural performance. I really enjoyed this. There was some walking but not a lot and there were places to sit. At the end of the performance we went inside and we were fed lunch of a traditional hangi meal. I don't think they explained it to us but I had seen this before in Portugal. They put everything together and cook it in the ground. Everything was delicious. We had a salad, corn, new potatoes, sweet potatoes, chicken, lamb and garlic bread. For dessert we had a choice of fruit salad or some kind of strawberry dessert. I didn't have either but Krista said the strawberry was good. Keep in mind that I had breakfast at 6:30 am and they served us this meal at 2:30 pm! That was the reason I was about to pass out. We are not allowed to carry any food off the ship with us so that is why I was starving.
After this it was about an hour ride back to the ship. We were going to try and walk to the shops but it looked like it was too far to walk to so we came on in and waited for dinner. Dinner was good tonight but I wasn't very hungry since it hadn't been long since we had eaten. They did have one of my favorite desserts -- Cappucino Bomb! They had some kind of problem with it though and didn't make very many of them. I got one of the few and I sure was glad!
After dinner we went to the spa and relaxed for a bit and then back to our room for the night. There is a pool party at 9:00 but I don't think we will be making it. Tomorrow we will be in Aukland. We had planned on doing America's Cup Yacht but when I got sick I wasn't sure how long I would be sick and didn't want to be out in the elements I had Krista to cancel it because we were still within the cancellation period. We don't have anything planned for tomorrow and I am looking forward to it. When we go on these excursions they take up all the time we have in port and then we don't get to look at things in town so now we will have time to do that.
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