Base Hot Rock Rotorua

My first adventure to different city with my friends.  So far I had been staying with my my friend Bex and her friends.  I grabbed a bus from Auckland and was bound to Rotorua ( stinky city ) On the ride down there I met a lovely guy named Gus who invited me to his place for lunch when we arrived in the city.  Had lunch at his flat and then walked around the city to see some of the sites.  Gus worked at the hotel in town and was able to get us free tickets (valued at $100 each) to Tamaki, a M...

On the way to **** central, we stopped off at a walk in the Karangahake Scenic Reserve over a 'bush-clad gorge' that had two massive swing bridges! That was muchos fun. We walked along a disused railway tunnel and saw glowworms. From there, we went to Matamata, the filming location for Hobbiton. It wasn't all that. When we hit Rotorua, we could smell it first. Beacuse of all the geothermal activity there, it smells like rotten eggs (sulphur). It's also called Roto-vegas, or just vegas, mainly...

Up at 6am so we could shower, check out and store away our excessive luggage bag before the coach arrived to pick us up. We must have been relatively organised for once as we were outside the front ten minutes early, where we met a Dutch person called Koen who was boarding the same bus as us. The bus arrived at 7.40am and our driver Trent (nickname "leftie"- best not to ask the origins of that particular nickname I think!) loaded our newly lightened rucksack onboard. We then spent the next 30...

Hey - I got a three hour bus from Auckland to Rotorua, in the middle of the North Island, on the 18th and checked into the Base hostel which was grand but a bit clinical. This area of New Zealand is famed for its geothermal activity and there are geysers and hot pools everywhere but they dont have the same choking sulphur smell as the Japanese onsens The locals can just tap into the water table and get a spa going in the back garden !! That evening I went down to the flash thermal pools at th...

Sunday morning we sped off in the pimp-mobile for more northerly territories. Napier was a conveniently placed town on the road to Lake Taupo, the latter a place we had dreamed of sky-diving since we were mere nippers. We spent the day in internet cafes, eating, and reading. In the evening we snuck into the local YHA for showers and watched a movie in the TV room, it was almost as if we were hostel-dwelling backpackers.. Earlier in the day Peters and I conceived a new food-based game, borne o...

Day 67 - Got to Rotorua this afternoon. Nice place, but a tad smelly. It's often regarded as Rotten-rua due to the smell of sulphar all around. It's a geothermal site and has a 70% Maori population. On the way, we went for a walk through the Karangahakew tunnel (caves) and also stopped at Hobbitville (possibly has another name, but most famous for the place where Lord of the Rings was shot).

Interesting place Rotorua, a couple of us went to the Te Puira geo thermal park where there ar...

Rotorua was nothing to write home about. It rained. I found that the Base downtown backpackers isn't the worst hostel in Rotorua. Base Hot Rocks is. And the bar there sucks. I couldn't believe there was no hot water. I went to a Maori thing the night I was in Rotorua. We got to see an old Maori village, a Haka, and got to eat some food. The meal was all-right; turkey, roast, potatoes, salad and steamed pudding for dessert. Maori dinner? I guess a traditional English dinner is better than eati...

Visiting a thermal village
I and Daniel went to a minigolfcourt and I lose.... Then we done the Loop. It's like a Gokart with 3 wheels and drove with this the mountain down. It was great.

When the Clarks dropped me off at the bus station this morning, my original plan was to go straight to the Mount. However, there weren't really any buses running that direction until Tuesday and I didn't want to stay in Hamilton. So I looked at my handy-dandy bus schedule and decided Rotorua really wasnt too far out of the way and I had missed it on my way to Hamilton. I checked in to base Backpackers, which was nice and clean... a quick run to the grocery store provided a splurge dinner - a ...

Take it away Erika.

Day 2: We travelled from Mercury bay to Rotorua, with a few stops on the middle. We went to an old gold mining area where we went through tunnels in the dark & learnt some stuff about the history of the area. The area was called Karangahake Scenic Reserve & we had to cross swing bridges to get to the correct side of the walk. The bridge is ok when you’re on your own, but as soon as someone walks on it, it starts swinging. A little daunting when youR...