Hotel

We had a great first day of vacation. It took us 3 hours to get out of the house -- we have a TON of stuff. There was also the random last minute things to do: write a note for the cat sitter, leave a check in the mailbox for the lawn guy, empty the garbage, make sure the cats have enough food and water, as well as the insane task of packing 10 days' worth of luggage, camping equipment, food, etc. into the car. Iain did an amazing job.

It's only a 3 hour drive to Rotorua from Auckland, so we took our time and stopped at the little town of Cambridge for lunch. We arrived at the hotel around 2:30pm. It's a nice hotel and we got an amazing rate, but I was disappointed to learn that they had no king rooms available, only double queens. It sounds high maintenance but for me, half the fun of staying in a hotel is the big bed. Oh well.

Oh - they also have shutters in the bathrooms that, we presume, allow you to take a bath while gazing out onto the lake. Weird.

Wayne arrived around 4pm. We met outside for some drinks before heading over to the hotel's restaurant for dinner. Already, our resolution to try to stay healthy while on vacation has been trashed. Good thing we're planning some hikes while camping!