So I had another sleepy day on the 15th here, and spent a good part of the day snoozing in the passenger seat while Eli drove north. We got up in the AM and made a quick drive to Taupo, so Eli could catch the noon jetboat trip. He had a blast; “stupid fun on the water”.  (more pics of Eli and jetboat on website)

Before, we stopped off at Lava Glass, a glass blowing place that had amazing pieces, with color and texture nicer than I’ve seen before. We didn’t have time for a tour, but we did stop at the cafe. I had a delicious egg/bacon/feta on a Turkish bread, and Eli had a yummy spinach and chicken fritata and another piece of tasty carrot cake.

Then we hopped in the car, and drove up to Oputerie, a small town that reminded me a lot of the Cape. Folks come here from Auckland (about 1.5-2hr drive) to come to a slightly nicer climate, hang out on the beach, and veg away from the touristy areas. It’s quite lovely here, with beautiful views and a relaxing atmosphere.  On the way, however, we did a lot of looking at this…

There is a LOT of logging on the way to this area. The GPS also got us lost by trying to take us down a gravel, steep, logging road (which was closed), so we did some backtracking through beautiful country.  We found a cute little campground right in Oputerie, and parked our van to take a walk through the forest to the beach.

where we wandered for a while, sat for a while, and collected shells. It was lovely and peaceful, and we got to watch some oystercatchers standing one-legged on the beach, hanging out, and an Australasian Gannet fishing in the shallows.  It was a lovely evening, followed by dinner at a tasty small place in the next town over (I just had the leftovers now, which were TASTY. Since I couldn’t taste when we were first there, I think we’re going again tonight!)