Rotorua

Day 1 – Rotten Eggs!

Moving on again today we were heading for the volcanic centre of the north island, Rotorua.  It was another 2 or 3 hour journey with nice scenery along the way.

On arriving in Rotorua the overwhelming thing you notice is the smell of rotten eggs due to all the sulphur gases escaping from the earth.  In fact as we drove into the centre of town heading for our motel we noticed a park which had plenty of gas vents coming out of it.

We were lucky enough to check in early but we were starting to learn that our accommodation budget was not going to keep us in the lap of luxury.  The room itself was clean enough and devoid of mad people, but it had two singles wedged into a room where you would be lucky enough to swing around a mouse in, let alone a cat!!

Feeling claustrophobic we decided to head straight out and saw that there was a volcanic park about half an hour away, so we jumped back in the car and headed for Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland.

On the drive there it was amazing to see sulphur gas escaping from everywhere, on mountains, at the side of the road and a nearby golf course.  When we started to approach Wai-O-Tapu gas clouds were coming out from everywhere and it looked like something out of Jurassic Park.

We parked up, paid our entrance fee and then started to walk around seeing craters with boiling water and sulphur gas coming out of them, we are going to smell like burnt matches!

One of the highlights here was The Champagne Pool, which was a large pool where the water was boiling giving the effect of champagne bubbles, accompanied by massive clouds of gas and colourful mineral deposits.

The walk was about an hour or so with boiling water and gas everywhere, with the odd scenic lake thrown in for good measure.  In all it was pretty amazing, but at the end of the walk we realised that we were going to fit in with the town as we must have stunk.

Leaving the park we headed for the mud pool as we had seen this sign posted on the way down.  We were pleased to see when we arrived here that this was a free attraction, it was a large pool of boiling mud which was quite fascinating and mesmerising at the same time.  Once again though it stunk of sulphur (and it was raining, hard).

It was getting late in the afternoon by now, beer o’clock so we headed for a nearby pub for a drink.  On arriving in the car park we were again amazed to see sulphur clouds coming out of the side of the road and hills behind the pub, I’m guessing you can get away with being very flatulent in this town.

A quick drink later and we headed back to our motel, dropping into a supermarket along the way to pick up some cold salad, chicken, cheese (for Glenn), pate and biscuits so we could have something to eat that wouldn’t be too costly.

Arriving back at the motel we plated up our buffet and cracked open a couple of bottles of red (we haven’t cut this from our budget yet!!) and settled down to watch Lord of the Rings on my PC (well we are in New Zealand) before hitting the sack.

Day 2 – Hello Geeeezer!!!

Today we had decided to visit another volcanic site, Te Puia which was only about a mile or so out of town which meant that we did not have to get up that early.

We drove down the road and paid our entrance fee, to give you an idea of how expensive things are here the entrance fee was $50 each, so just over £50 for two!

Fortunately we had just arrived in time to go on a guided tour, the guide was part Maori and had a great knowledge and seemed very proud that he could pronounce the name of the area which was pretty much as that silly town in wales ……GoGoGoch!

He first took us to the point where you could see the parks famous geyser (the highest in the southern hemisphere), as he knew it well he could tell that it wasn’t due to erupt for a bit so he took us to show us some other stuff before the main event.

We visited a traditional Maori wood carving workshop where they teach traditional skills to 5 new apprentices every year.  Apparently you have to be male, between 18-30 and of Maori descent or have Maori values to apply, but the age restriction is so that they can return to their part of NZ and teach the skills learned for another 30  years. 

After this we visited a workshop where the women wove flax into various things such as garments to wear and mats.

Returning to the geyser our guide pointed out that the small geyser at the side of the main vent was starting to erupt which meant that the main one was going to start up very soon.  So he took us very quickly to the viewing platform right next to it and waited.

Almost as we got there the geyser started to do its thing, shooting jets of boiling water into the air, but with so much steam and the wind blowing into us the view was a bit obscured.  Our guide then took us to a higher vantage point where we could see it clearly just as it reached its full height of around 30 metres (it can get up to 50 metres) so we could get some better pictures.

The geyser was amazing and it was the first time that Shell or I had ever seen one of these, when it started dying down we headed off but thought we would come back later to see if we could see its next eruption (every 1 to 2 hours).

The final point of the guided tour was going to see the native Kiwi bird, we were taken to a nocturnal enclosure where there was one of these birds to see.  So that means that Shell and I wasted a lot of time trying to spot them in fields as we drove along, we didn’t realise they were nocturnal!!

Anyway the tour finished and its was pouring down so after checking out the model of a traditional Maori village we didn’t fancy waiting around for the next geyser eruption so we decided to head off.

On the way back to the motel we stopped off at the supermarket to pick up some breakfast bits. We then went to a shop where we picked up some towels and Shell determined to do some proper cooking persuaded me to buy an electric like hot plate like what we had in our campervan.  Her argument being that it was only $35 and we’d make it back in wholesome casseroles and the like?!

We headed back to our box room hoping that we would go out and visit the nearby park so see the volcanic pools they had there.  The weather was against us so I ended up blogging for the rest of the afternoon whilst Shell did some NZ research.

The evening was spent in pretty much the same way, with a buffet dinner, some red wine and watching the next in the Lord of the Rings trilogy before bed.