In a word...BEAUTIFUL.

We just got home from the vacation of a lifetime! We were blessed to spend 11 days driving our way through the stunningly beautiful country of New Zealand, and wow - there are hardly words to describe just how pretty it is! From Auckland on the North Island to Queenstown on the South Island, and everywhere in between - we simply fell in love with this country and the gorgeousness of it's constantly changing landscape. I wish so badly that these pictures could give you more than just an idea of what we saw - but unfortunately, they simply don't do it justice! We said more "oohh's and aaahh's" on this roadtrip than we ever have in our lives, and we've both decided that New Zealand is without a doubt the prettiest place we've ever seen. 

After catching up on some sleep during our first night in Auckland, we headed South on a 4 hour drive towards Rotorua. On our way though, we made a stop off in Waitomo to see their famous Glowworm Caves. As soon as we were outside of the busy city of Auckland, our mouths started to drop at the scenery of the NZ countryside. It's not just simple rolling hills, instead, it's beautiful bright green sharply carved out hills, almost with deep crevices in between them. T and I are not quite up to date on our geography terms, but we both agreed that simply calling them hills does not do them justice! We arrived in Waitomo and went on a tour of their glowworm caves. Sadly, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside of the cave bc it's harmful to the glowworms. We rode on a boat through pitch black caves staring up at what looked like the Milky Way! Only instead of stars, there were millions of shining bright glowworms! After the caves, we made a quick stop to visit the "Shearing Shed" in Waitomo, which is the only place in New Zealand where you can see Angora Rabbits! Have you ever seen one? We hadn't, and so you can imagine our surprise when we saw how HUGE and furry they are!! Seriously, we never knew that rabbits could get so big!! We watched them shear the fur off of one, which was really neat! And you can definitely see why people like to wear Angora - it's SO soft!

We were finally done with Waitomo and continued on our way to Rotorua. Of course, we made several unexpected stops along the way for pictures because it was just entirely too pretty to pass up! You'll find this was the theme of our trip to NZ! We arrived in Rotorua and quickly saw why it's so famous...it's an area of NZ known for it's geothermal activity, and there is a distinct smell of sulphur in the air (or, rotten eggs to be less scientific!) as well as natural hot springs & steam rising out of the ground everywhere! We got into town pretty late, so we had an early dinner and went to bed early before our day of exploring Rotorua. Enjoy the pics from our first full day in NZ! I'll try and get to the rest of our days quickly! (We did take nearly 1000 pics - so be prepared!)