Weet-Bix Tryathlon

The Weet-Bix Tryathlon is a bit of a rite of passage for kids in New Zealand. It is an incredibly well run event that has been exposing New Zealand youth to the sport for 22 years. This year fourteen cities across the country hosted the race. I was blown away with the number of kids that participated. I loved the feel of the event - no prizes for the fastest or the best. It was a TRYathlon and everyone got an A for effort at this party.

Max and Maggie had a great time participating and are looking forward to the Ecomist Blue Lake Multisport Festival. I will be doing my first Rotorua race - a 2km open water swim across Blue Lakes (one of our favorites) and the kids will be participating in the kids triathlon.

Lake Tarawera hot water beach hike

As our time in New Zealand is coming to a close we are working to get a few things ticked off our bucket list.

The Tarawera trail, which opened about a year ago, was on that list. A 15 kilometer hike from Te Wairoa to Hot Water Beach. Not suitable for any of our kids.

We were able to secure a babysitter for most of the day. Left the house a little before 9:00, hit the trail around 9:30 and arrived at hot water beach shortly after noon. We met a very nice family that took us by boat to a hot pool that we missed along the way. We soaked for a while, explored the beach, had tea with our new friends and caught the water taxi back to our car at 3:30. Picked up some pizza for the kids and Indian food for our selves and enjoyed a nice glass of wine before bed. A perfect New Zealand date day.

Waitomo glowworm caves

photo courtesy of Spellbound

The Waitomo glow worm caves were on my bucket list of things to see in New Zealand.

We woke up one Saturday a few weeks ago with nothing on the agenda and decided to try to book a tour. Waitomo is about two hours from our house, so it ended up being a long day, but was well worth the effort.

We went with Spellbound, a small company that a friend recommended. We had an wonderful tour guide (all to our self) who taught us a lot about the area as well as the underground sights that we saw. It was a three hour tour through two caves. In one of the caves we took a short boat ride down a stream that was lit by glow worms. Beautiful.