Xmas Office trip ...........Awesome weekend

This weekend we had been on a mystery trip. We were not sure until we reached the actual places, where we were going and what activities we were doing. It was an amazing trip.... Thanks to Jon & Barbara, who arranged it without giving any hint to us.
We left on Friday evening on a bus. On the way we were entertained by Jon and bus driver David with Quiz and jokes. We reached Waihi beach and had dinner. We thought we will be staying there, but we were told to get inside the bus. We travelled to Welcome Bay in Bay of Plenty. We checked in to Ridge Country Retreat in an amazing location on a hilly forest area overlooking Tauranga.
On saturday, we had our breakfast and we left again for a unknown place and unknown activity. At 11AM we reached Whakatane. Just before reaching Whakatane, we came to know that we will be going to White Island. This is NZ's only active marine volcano.

 We were very excited to go. We took a boat, as the island is 50KM in to pacific ocean. That was an 90 minute unforgettable ride on the choppy waters. Boat was moving in all direction and lot of people had sea sickness. I never had such a bad feeling about travelling. I just wanted the boat ride to get over. As we were landing on the island, we were given a hard helmet and gas mask as part of our safety drill.
  Once we were on the island, it was just amazing. We saw nature at work...... Vivid colours of sulpher and other gases.... green water at -0.1ph.... boiling mud......... and people going in line and in gas mask as if we were in chemical war zone...........  after the volcano visit, we were back in the boat for another horrible journey. But this time it was better than the earlier one.

After that we went back to our hotel for a wash and an evening party. What a sight.... people getting drunk and dancing....
At the end everybody was sooooooooo tired.......




On Sunday we thought, we will have breakfast and will start our journey back to Auckland. But Barbara had planned something else for us.
We checked out of our hotel and left by bus to a farm for more adventure.... Once we got down, We wore safety jacket and we were off to jet boating. Amazing 30 minute high speed jet boating on Kaituna river....
After that, we left Bay of Plenty. On the way we stopped at Hobbiton Movie Set Tours. It's huge 1200 acre land with green grass up's and downs. Here the Lord of the Rings movie was shot and you can also see the actual NZ farm living.

So after lunch we had our so called team building exercises. But we were chasing sheeps as part of the exercise......... you don't belive me look at thissssssssssssss........

We did ride quad bikes blind folded.... Nice activites.
And finally on the bus, Jon gave funny awards to all and we reached Auckland.................