The next phase of our New Zealand trip has definitely been the “adventure” portion of the vacation. First up, The Husband getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road.

(Not a flipped image!)

He’s very good at it! Although fun fact, the wiper and blinker stick thingeys are also reversed, so sometimes when we’re about to turn, the windshield wipers go off. He says he does it on purpose, but it’s not always raining…

Our first adventure was deep underground – we went caving!

And not just into any caves. In our first cave, we got into a raft on a subterranean river, everyone turned their lights off and then ZOMG:

Glow worms!! It was like being under the stars, except replace “stars” with “maggots with glowing bums.”

The next cave was more traditional but also super cool.

After the Waitomo caves, it was off to Rotorua (with me navigating and reminding “stay to the left…). The countryside here is gorgeous.

The next adventure was the craziest – zorbing! Basically you get inside a giant hamster ball and roll down a hill.

Here’s the insider version:

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(The water is to keep you slipping around gently instead of clobbering one another. Since I consider being cold, going fast, AND getting wet to be the trifecta of evil, I stayed at the bottom and held the purses.)

I did participate in the next adventure – a gondola ride up the mountain and luging down it.

(The Girl is pouting because her head is too small to fit grownup sizes.)

It was basically MarioKart!

Then the MarioKarters hit the road again to Tauranga and found ourselves a very Oregon-like beach.

See that mountain? The Husband and I climbed it this morning!

The view was standard New Zealand aka amaze balls. Plus wandering herd of sheep, natch. I even took one of those fancy travel lifestyle pics of me doing yoga at the top of the mountain.

(Like I said, I’m getting SO good at corpse pose!)

Today’s last adventure was a tour of one of the oldest buildings in New Zealand where we got our history on.

(What do you mean “all your pictures have books in them?” I said it was an adventure….)

Tonight is packing up the clothes we washed today in preparation for our next leg. Off to Oz tomorrow! But not without first saying goodbye to NZ by hanging out with some natives (aka hobbits)….