A surprise trip to Rotorua

Hi! It's Cinnamon.

Yay, we went on a trip to Rotorua on the weekend!! It was kind of a surprise present for us actually. None of us didn't know we were going to Rotorua until Tuesday.

Although I didn't write about it in my previous posts, Mum's mummy, auntie, and uncle stayed with us for several days from late January. Because Mum was too busy to take them out of Auckland for sightseeing, our guests rented a car and went on a trip to Rotorua and Napier by themselves while Mum stayed home working as usual. But, just before they went back home, Mum's auntie realised that she had left something behind at a hotel in Rotorua. Mum immedietely rang the hotel and confirmed that they had the thing. Mum also asked a hotel receptionist to courier it to the aunty's home in Japan. However, on Monday Mum got a phone call from the auntie. She said that someone from the hotel had rung her to let her know that they couldn't courier the thing left behind by the auntie because it contained something valuable. The only way to retrieve the thing was someone went to the hotel in person to collect it. That is how my Mum and Dad decided to go to Rotorua on the weekend.

Mum and Dad searched the Internet to find several motels that allowed dogs. Mum chose one of them, Gibson Court Motel, and booked it because some of its units had private mineral pool.

Then on Thursday Mum got a phone call from her friend. She was looking for a place where her dog could stay for the weekend. So, Mum and Dad decided to take him to Rotorua with us. But, there was one concern. They were not sure how well we, Mint and I, and the dog got along. On Thursday Mum's friend came with the dog called Kurosawa, or Kuro, to see how well we got along. Of course we welcomed Kuro, as both of us, Mint and I, had met and played with him before.

On Saturday morning we went to Kuro's house to pick him up before heading for Rotorua. On the way to our destination, we stopped twice for short breaks. All of us travelled well.





In Rotorua, after collecting Mum's auntie's thing from the hotel and checked in our motel, we got in the car again and went to the Redwoods Whakarewarewa Forest, which we had heard about from our friend Honey the Great Dane. Actually our motel was very close to the forest, only a few minutes' drive away. Mum first visited the information centre to confirm that dogs are allowed on tracks in the forest as long as they are kept on the lead, then we set out for a walk. Despite the high temperature and humidity that day, we thoroughly enjoyed the walk, as the track we walked on was sheltered under huge trees all the way from the start to the end.




Back at the motel Mum and Dad enjoyed soaking in the mineral pool while we doggies had a nap. Our travel mate, Kuro, was so well-behaved (He never tried to jump on a couch or bed!) that he was allowed to be free in the motel unit throughout our stay in the motel, while we were put in our crate when neither Mum nor Dad could keep an eye on us.



The next morning we went to the Redwoods Forest again and on the way back to Auckland we dropped by Cambridge where agility show was being held because Mum wanted to say hello to someone who she knows. There were a huge number of people there, but she did manage to find the person and had a chat with her before hitting the road again to come back home.




It was a fantastic weekend!! I hope Kuro can come to stay with us again soon.