Lucy's Holiday Recount...
I woke up on Saturday quite early as I had netball. Cheyenne, Mum, Dad, Jack and I arrived at the courts and I started to warm up for my game. My team and i did some drills and Cheyenne joined in on some of them. It wasn't long before the lady said over the intercom that our round was starting soon. We walked to the courts and got into our positions on the court. We played really well as a team especially seeing it was raining quite hard but we unfortunately just lost to our apposing team Breakthru. After my game we dropped Cheyenne off and went back home. For the rest of the day we basically just relaxed.
On Sunday we didn't do much in the morning. We had a bit of a slow start. We went out for a late breakfast and then we went shopping at Sylvia Park for a couple of hours. After we went home and didn't do much for the rest of the day.
When we woke up on Monday morning Mum had already left to go to work. We packed our bags and then pack up the car ready for our dad to take my brother and I on a mystery holiday. We then started our journey to our mystery destination. We arrived at our first destination. It was Waitomo Caves! We checked into our hotel and then we decided to go into some of the caves. We got to the caves site and we bought tickets to go into the Ruakuri cave and the Glow worm cave but there was only time to do one cave so we did the Ruakuri cave. This cave took 2 hours to explore and the formations in it were awesome! Once we came out of the cave we went back to our hotel and we got ready to go out for dinner. We had dinner and we went home and got into bed.
On Tuesday morning we woke up and went to the hotel dining room for breakfast, then we checked out and went back to the cave site to explore the glow worm cave. The formations in this cave were not the best but in one spot the whole ceiling of the cave was covered in glow worms. There were between 17,000 and 19,000 glow worms lining the cave ceiling. When we came out of the cave we set off to our next secret destination. We arrived in Rotorua and checked into our hotel... 'The Duxton Hotel'. It was a really nice hotel and we went outside and played with the big chess set (not that I can play chess). We then went to the buried village and we looked at the things which had been pulled out of the rubble and also looked at what was left of the hotel that collapsed in the earthquake. With not much time to spare we went home and got ready to go out to the Maori cultural evening. This evening was hosted by an iwi or tribe called Maiti. We saw the Maori warriors row the waka (boat) and then we watched and enjoyed the boys do a haka and the girls do dances with poi. The chief of the tribe stood up as well and spoke about various things. One of the things that really interested me was when he spoke about what each symbol or pattern represented on the moko (tattoo art). After we watched the show we had dinner. This was a hangi (meal cooked in the ground). This was really nice. After dinner we were all tired as it was quite late so we went back to our hotel and went to bed. My brother Jack, my dad and
I woke up really late on Wednesday morning. We all headed down to the hotel dining room for breakfast. Once we had finished our breakfast we checked out of our hotel. We went to mini golf on our way back to Auckland and I was so close to winning but dad all of a sudden overtook me when there was only a few holes to go. Once we finished playing mini golf we headed back to Auckland as I had an appointment on Thursday morning. We got back to Auckland and we just relaxed for a while until it was time for dinner and then bed.
I woke up on Thursday morning quite early because I had an early appointment. I went to my appointment with my dad and brother and then we re-packed the car and set off to Mt Maunganui. This is where my cousins live. We got there at about 7:00 pm and had to wait for my cousins and Auntie and Uncle to come home. We phoned them and asked them where they were and they said that they were almost home but they were on their way back from Mt Ruapehu. They told us where their spare key was and also told us to go inside and put the heaters on but we couldn't get the key to work for some reason so we waited outside for them to come home. Once they had arrived we decided to order pizza as there wasn't time to cook dinner so that is what we did. After dinner we put on a movie and then it was time for bed.
I woke up on Friday morning to find that my younger cousin Carter was awake and playing his Nintendo. My cousin Aimee was also awake and she was having breakfast. I decided to have breakfast too and then I went to have a shower. Later on my dad took my brother, Cater and I to see and thank the nurses that looked after him in the Tauranga Hospital when he was sick. It brought back a lot of sad memories but it was a nice thing to do for the nurses. After visiting the nurses we went to quickly see my friend Courtney who lives just out of Tauranga. Once we had seen her we went to get some lunch. We had sushi and we looked around at some of the shops and then we went home. By the time we got back Aimee was back from her friends house and we just relaxed until the end of the day.
On Saturday morning mum arrived at the mount. We decided to go for a swim at Bay wave. Bay wave is a wave pool, spa, training pool and hydro-slide complex. It was really fun but I lost an earring! After Bay wave we went out to get me some tracksuit pants as I needed some new ones and then we went home and relaxed for the rest of the day.
When we woke up on Sunday we had breakfast and mum told me that she had to go and pick one of her friend's children from her aunty's place. I decided to go with her to pick Lizzie up. We got back to my aunty's house and the others weren't there. We thought that they would have taken the dog for a walk while we were out as Molly wasn't there. They came back not long later and we played singstar for a while then we went to see my this awesome dog. His name is Ralph and he is my cousin's uncle Geoff's. After seeing Ralph we were on the road again and back to Auckland.
On Monday morning I had a slow start. I got up and had breakfast but after that I didn't really do much. I just relaxed for the whole day.
I woke up on Tuesday and had breakfast. From here until the end of the day I didn't do much I just relaxed.
I woke up on Wednesday and had another slow start. I phoned some friends but they were all busy so they couldn't come over. Again I didn't do much but I did do some work on the photo album or scrapbook that I was making for my friend in Australia.
On Thursday morning I phoned my friend Jennifer and she said she could come over. We made chocolate chip cookies and then we walked up to my primary school which is just up the road to see the new playground. We were there for about 40 minutes and then we had to come home as I had netball practice. I went to netball and then I went and had a haircut. I also got highlights.
On Friday morning I went to my friend Laura's as I was going to play goal attack in my netball game the next day and I needed to practice shooting. We went for a run too and I baked chocolate chip cookies for the second day in a row. I went home at 3:45 and just relaxed for the rest of the day.
I woke up early on Saturday as I had netball and I had to be at the courts at 8:30. It was raining really hard at 8:30 so we were all hoping it would either stop raining or our game would be canceled. It fortunately stopped raining so we could play. I was the sub for the first half so I went on at half time and I scored a goal. It was really fun. We went home and I had my friend Danielle over. Once she had gone home I relaxed for the rest of the day.
On Sunday we had a slow start. Once we were finally all awake and dressed we went to Botany to get some earrings for me to replace the ones I lost at Bay wave. Then we went home and relaxed for a while. At five o'clock we went to see an ice hockey game because we knew the goalie in one of the teams. It was awesome but really rough. When we got home we had dinner and went to bed because we had school in the morning so we needed good nights sleep.
This is the hotel in Waitomo...
When we were in Waitomo this is where we stayed... There is another photo of the whole thing below...
This is the whole of the hotel...
This is the hotel we stayed in. It is huge...
Sign at the caves site...
This is a huge carving at the waitomo caves site there is another picture of the top of it.
Top of carving
This is the top of the carving above...
Sign from Woitomo caves
This is the sign which tells you all the information you need to konw about each cave.
This is the large chess board
This is the big chess set that we played with at The Duxton Hotel
The lake The Duxton looks over
This is the lake that The Duxton looks over
Waterfall at the Buried Village
You were able to see this waterfall when walking the track of the buried village
Map to the Buried village
This is a map to the Buried Village.
Covered up hangi
The dark patches that you can see are the dark brown sacks placed on top of the hungi to keep the heat in. The white that you can see is sheets also covering up the hungi.
The hangi...
This is the hungi when they took the sheets and sacks off.
Maori warriors rowing the waka
These are the Maori warriors rowing the waka. They must have been freezing as it was the middle of winter, in Rotorua and 7:00pm when they did this. I was freezing with 6 layers on so they must have been extremely cold!
Maori warriors rowing waka
Here is another photo of the warriors rowing the waka
A hole at mini golf
This is a cool hole from mini golf in Rotorua.
