Babbling Brooke’s Travel Blog

We awoke on Christmas morning surrounded in a thick fog, blanketing the Airbnb, river, and surrounding pastures. The sun was trying hard to pierce the fog, but at this point it was unsuccessful and left us with a perfect excuse to lounge about and stay in bed. I did some writing and then eventually hunger took over and it was time to make a nice Christmas breaky! Fresh farm eggs from our host, strawberry matcha latte, orange juice, toast with jam, fruit- the works! Our Airbnb had 2 cozy robes and we took full advantage! 

This wasn’t a completely blank day, however, so eventually we got ready for the day and headed back toward Rotorua to go do downhill luge- which at this point, we really had no idea why we were about to be in for. All we knew was that you ride on a track downhill in a cart- but it was so much more! 

Before we could luge, Matt had saved a couple spots to check out on the way to break up the drive a bit (we had been making the hour long drive many times at this point). The first was a really cool suspension bridge that went across a canyon with a dam below! It was kinda freaky walking on it because every step reverberated and made it bounce slightly, reminding you how high up you were. 

The next stop was checking out Blue Springs that is suppose to have crystal clear, super blue water contrasted with bright green river grasses flowing in it. The pictures of it looked awesome and we were stoked to check it out. But we’ll never know if the pictures did it any justice because when we showed up it was So overrun with tourists, there was absolutely no parking. The lot was way beyond capacity and people resorted to parking on the road, making driving through an absolute disaster. We quickly decided that nothing is worth the craze and stress of trying to park to likely just stand in a line to get a pic, while everyone is posing for the gram. So we said screw that and drove off! We actually tried to just keep driving at fist because Google Maps said we could connect back to the highway. But after 5-10 minutes we realized it was wrong since there was a big gate across the road! So I turned around and drove back through the crazy- which had somehow gotten crazier- before finally leaving the mess behind us. 

We showed up to Skyline Rotorua and hopped onto a gondola to take us up the mountain. As we climbed we got a pretty kick ass view of the lake and surrounding city; it was a perfect bluebird day without a cloud in the sky. Getting off the gondola, we were thrust into a crowd of people and it was a little overstimulating! We found our way to the luge area, grabbed helmets and got in line for our first ride. The lines were long but we watched others take off as we waited. We were about to ride 3-wheeled carts down the mountain on a track of our choosing. There were 5 total, depending on the kind of ride you would like to have- slow and steady, all the way to super loopy, and pure speed! The carts were super low to the ground, with bicycle-style handlebars that, when pulled to the middle position, were free to coast forward. Pulling back on the handlebars put on the brakes , and letting the bars go all the way forward into their resting position tilted the cart so that it wouldn’t go forward at all (emergency breaks). Once sat inside, we were given a quick tutorial and then off we went!

Matt and I decided to go for the heavily looped track first, and holy crap was it fun to blast through the corners as fast as we could! Loop after loop, tunnels with LED lights, and the forest around us we zoomed down the mountain. At the bottom of the ride we got out of each of our carts and back in line to head up the mountain again. The ingenuity of the park was amazing. To get back up the mountain they had installed a ski lift. And each chair had a hook-in mechanism that hooked onto the cart handle bars, carrying them up the mountain as well!

Back at the top we decided to spend our second and final ride going down the “fastest” track. This time, Matt hooked up the GoPro and got the ride on video! I went so fast around one of the corners one of my wheels lifted up and definitely freaked me out 😳 

Once we had ridden the ski lift back up the mountain after cruising down, we explored a little bit and debated doing the huge zip line that was available. Since breakfast had been long, long ago we needed to find food and it being Christmas meant our options were limited. Skyline does have restaurant options, however we finished up in between lunch and their holiday dinner- so we left the mountain in search of food. We ended up in a caravan of cars also searching for food, driving around to places Google Maps said were open, only to find they were very much closed. When all seemed lost, we finally found a Pizza Hut, of all things, that was open! We stuffed our faces in the parking lot, and I got a picture of the tiniest piece of pizza ever created. Maybe we truly were starving because, I gotta say, the Pizza Hut in NZ isn’t half bad! 

Cruising back to our airbnb, we were tired after a lot of driving and a few more flops than we had anticipated. It was time to sit in the sun, pour a glass of wine, and Facetime family while our bathtubs were filled up (takes about 40 mins for the tubs to fill).

After tubbing, we cooked a yummy creamy orzo pasta with chicken sausage dinner. It was super late at this point, but we had spent so much time trying to find all the ingredients for this seemingly simple meal at a Woolworth’s grocery store on the 23rd, when all of Rotorua was also doing their Christmas food shopping. it was truly a mad house! I was not about to let all that effort go to waste- even if it was like 10pm by the time we ate! 🙈

After dinner we were both thoroughly tired and promptly passed the heck out! Being the last night in our favorite Airbnb so far, we soaked it up knowing tomorrow it was time to continue south to Wellington!

Lots more updates coming including windy Wellington, crossing Cook’s Straight, and the beginning of our South Island adventures! Subscribe below to tag along 😎