Princes Gate Rotorua

Today the first part of my holiday effectively ends :-( I packed all my things together ready for my journey to Rotorua, where my conference was being held. I had to be checked out by 10am, which I managed with about 1 minute to spare, and then set off on my way. There was no proper direct route to Rotorua from New Plymouth so I ended up having to go most of the way back to Hamilton before being able to cut across towards Taupo. I was fortunate that there were some nice places to stop en rout...

I woke up reasonably early for a Sunday and collected my paper from outside my door. It was a nice sunny day but I had arranged to meet Ged to get our stand all set up at 11am in the bar (we arranged to meet in the bar, not get the stand set up there. Obviously) I took a short walk to the lake front to enjoy the sun before heading back to the hotel. I met Ged and we headed over to the convention centre. We were pleased to discover that everything we had ordered had arrived and was in the corr...

Ah, and so the conference proper begins. I awoke this morning at 8am, and once again collected my paper and made a nice hot Ribena (doesn't taste quite the same here, but it is pretty good so I don't mind too much). We had arranged to meet at the convention centre around 9:30am to start our day's work and so for the first day at least that is what we did! The conference was a little slow in the beginning and it wasn't until lunchtime that things really picked up. This meant in the morning we ...

Ah, another day of conferencing. We had come to the conclusion that no one was going to turn up at the convention centre before morning teabreak so we decided that we would turn up at around 10am to get there just before it started. It appeared that quite a few others had had the same idea, judging by the vendors wandering in just when I got there. The day went a bit quicker and we had more to do. I had a few meetings to get out of the way and that always helps pass the time. I also had the c...

Finally the last day of the conference had arrived. As suspected there were a lot of people wandering around a little the worse for wear, which made me chuckle somewhat. Quite a few people wandered past the stand, for last minute work-related chats or to continue discussions that had started over dinner. It was definitely one of those mornings that pleasantly ambled by. It was also Dan's birthday today (Happy birthday, Dan!), which meant cake and another excuse to head out to dinner and have ...

We flew into Auckland and said our goodbyes to the 20 guests that we shared a plan with and departed to Rotorua. We were so tired that once we arrived we went to the information centre and booked dinner at a traditional Maori Hungi and found this awesome hotel across the road called Prince's Gate Hotel and passed out. We woke up in time for dinner and we were treated to a lovely show and feast. Well worth a look to anyone passing through. The next day was adventure day, we went to the Agrodom...

Friday 12 December, 8.08pm, Princes Gate Hotel Good people, I beg of you. Do not stay at the Princes Gate Hotel. They have committed an unforgiveable sin in my eyes - they charge $10/hr for their wireless internet, and you have to sit in the lobby to use it (the most expensive internet cafes I've seen only charge $4/hr), and if you instead use the wired internet available in your room, you either have to pay $30/day - or, rather, $30 for 100mb. This is DAYLIGHT BLOODY ROBBERY. After that, it ...

It is very late. I am utterly exhausted. I will fill you in on my most excellent and action packed day tomorrow when I get to Auckland. For now, let me say just one thing: ZORBING IS THE BEST THING EVER, AND I WANT ONE FOR MY BACK GARDEN. Goodnight, folks.