Waitaupo Thermal Wonderland

last night, the Lord sent an angel to us! Mikah is her name and she is a 20 year old German girl. She was staying in our room and asked me what i was planning on doing Friday. i told her we still had to go see the geysers and thermal pools near Rotorua. she had a car and wanted to go with us. she volunteered to take us all! that totally saved us money and it was so much more fun having her with us. just as we were about to finish breakfast, Gerard, the owner of the hostel, asked us what we were doing today. i told him and he all of the sudden looked panicked. he said we had to literally leave NOW! he wanted us to get there in time to see the geyser go off, which it does only once a day at 10:15 am. well, that sent us running out the door, literally. we all jumped in the car and off we went down the road to find this geyser. after we parked and made it to the site, it just started bubbling out. PERFECT TIMING! we saw the thing go off and it looked like "Old Faithful" at Yellowstone. maybe it wasn't as high as old faithful, i'm not sure. this is definitely the same type of scenery as Yellowstone, but on a much smaller scale. even most of the pools here were just bubbling mud pools, unlike the tons of hot water pools you see at Yellowstone. nevertheless, this was in NZ and i thoroughly enjoyed it. we hurriedly went around the park and saw everything on all of the walkways, because we had to make it back in time to catch our 2pm bus to Auckland. we had a great visit with Mikah and i'm truly glad we got to know her. she is from Stuttgart, Germany. maybe one day when i go to visit my uncle in Munich, i can swing by and visit her. everything worked out. the Lord provided so faithfully for the time schedule of events. we made it to the hostel, got our bags, and said our goodbyes, then made the bus. the drive to Auckland was beautiful again. we got here to auckland after 6pm and passed through Mata Mata, the town where they filmed Hobbit town. as we drove, i just kept thinking "okay, this is it, my last minutes of daylight in NZ." i have never been in a country where every second of driving is so beautiful. you could just take pictures the entire drive. i soaked it all in and gave so much praise to the Lord for His mercies on us and blessings for bringing us here and to Thailand. we have experienced the extraordinary these past two months.