Blue Lake Top 10 Holiday Park & Motel Rotorua

11/09/04 Before leaving Gisborne, we stopped by the monument signifying Cook's first landing on New Zealand soil, though sadly not a statue of the man himself, more a pointy war memorial style obelisk. Our route took us north along the Pacific Coast Highway towards East Cape, the country's most easterly point, and up to the town of Te Araroa. A veil of drizzle kept us company for most of the way as we negotiated the usual taxing roads that were made all the more tricky with the onslaught of l...

The next morning we headed off towards Rotorua stopping off in various places along the way. The first stop was to have a look at Huka falls - a long and rather flat waterfal just outside Tapau but impressive none the less. We then came across a lava glass factory and stopped off to make some purchases and watch some of the glass being blown - very clever stuff. We then went to the first of the thermal volcanic parks that we planned to visit, the "Hidden Valley". This was a volcanic area with...

Things got a little better once we had gotten over yesterday!! Moved on to Rotarua to see Billy Connalloy on Staurday and it was just what we needed. What a funny fella he was. Telling jokes about big fat people and I had the biggest mother sitting next to or mostly ON me!!! She did'nt think he was very funny at some points!!! from Rotarua we left and stayed a night in Orewa then travelled up to Ahipara where we had an apartment for a week re Calle and the house swap. Bloody beautiful!!! Righ...

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Day 61 Thursday 3nd September Rotorua
This morning we spent travelling around at the lakes area of Rotorua. Buried village and Mount Tarawera area are interesting places we have seen in previous visits.
Too late for a birthday breakfast so made do with coffee and muffuns.
Last chance for Bron to look for souvenirs to take home.
After lunch we headed north to Mount Maunganui through the kiwif...

Rotorua or Rotovegas as the locals affectionately call it is the tourist hub of New Zealand so there is alot to do around Rotorua. Aaron is only three years old so our activities were limited to what we could do together.

Kayaking the lakes is an optioning but we took the easier version with the Duck Tours. These are converted Second World War water landing vehicles. Aaron enjoyed blowing on the duck beaks (if can I call them that!).

The Gondolas and the luge ride down the hill ...

We stayed in Rotorua and planned a lot of activities. First stop the Rotorua Museum, we tagged onto a tour with a very knowledgable lady telling us all about the Maori history of the area (they all arrived about 800 years ago in a big canoe from Tahiti!). Then the history of the bath house (that is home to the museum), it seems that the suphuric acid that flows up from the ground is quite corrosive and you need special pipes to enable people to bath in it. Some of the early 20th century treat...

We were off towards Rotorua. That's Rotorulla if your american, because if you pronounce it like it seems people don't have a clue where you are talking about. The van drove fine and we managed to avoid crashing on our first double roundabout out of Auckland. Driving on the left hand side of the road did trip me up a bit, especially having the turn signal on the right side of the wheel. This resulted in me putting on the windshield wipers everytime we changed lanes. It was a 4 hour drive to R...

We set out on the long drive, stopping at the Manukau shopping centre just south of Auckland before continuing south to Rotorua, the city of thermal activity and smelling of sulphur, nice. The girls (Emma, Bek and Jenny) insisted that a visit to Hell's Gate mud pools was compulsory...Bek had read that it takes 10 years off you so it was worth a try, and the second mortgage, and Dan and George seemed pleased enough to join them (nothing I'm sure with all the Japanese girls in bikinis..). That ...