My Personal Amazing Race - New Zealand

In today's blog post, I will highlight my travels in New Zealand parallel to Amazing Race Season 2, Leg 11. We visited New Zealand in April 2002, prior to the original air date (May 8, 2002).  I believe the Amazing Race crew filmed the leg prior my visit to New Zealand.

In this episode, teams start the leg on the South Island, drive to ferry boat to the North Island and then drive 6 hours to Rotorua.  In Rotorua, they visit the Maori Arts & Crafts Institute and watch a Maori dance.

My Experience

In April 2002, we flew into Auckland, New Zealand and rented a car and enjoyed a 7 day driving tour of the North Island of New Zealand.  First thing to note is that driving in New Zealand is on the opposite side of the road from the USA.  The employees of the car rental agency didn't seem too concerned when we admitted we had no experience driving on the left side of the road.  For the most part, we stayed on the left side of the road.  The hardest part was actually finding the turn signal indicator.  99% of the time, we would turn on the windshield wiper when we actually intended to illuminate our turn signal.

Rotorua is known for hot spring geysers and Maori Center.  While in Rotorua we visited the Maori Village and participated in a Maori Hangi feast.  The Maori Hangi is similar to a Hawaiian Luau, there is traditional dancing and dinner.  In the first picture above, my husband, Paul was selected volunteered to lead the tourists into the Maori Center.  After dinner, the host asked all of the guests to sing their national anthem one country at a time.  For example, the host would ask everyone from the UK to stand up, gather in the middle of the room and sing their national anthem.  When the host called up USA, we were worried we would be the only ones, but one other couple joined us.  Most of the other guests were from Commonwealth countries.

Side Note:

In Amazing Race Season 2 Leg 8, the teams complete a Roadblock at the Sydney Opera House.  When I was about 4 years old, I visited Sydney, and my parents took a photo of my 4-year-old self in front of the Sydney Opera House.  Unfortunately, I could not locate that photo for the purposes of posting it on this blog.