We drove East towards the volcanic centre of the North Island and the town of Rotorua. On approach we both smelt a familiar pong, but as we started to blame each other realised that the smell of sulphur was from the volcanic activity in the region. The whole area stank of rotten eggs! It was a bit horrible at first but you soon get used to it and even come to like it in a weird way? Rotorua sits bang ontop of a seething mass of geothermic activity and the surface signs of this are hot springs, geysers, mud pools and steam rising mysteriously from the ground.
We set-up in Cactus Jack's, a rambling Western themed hostel (we were staying in the stable) with loads of young boozing backpackers and even boozier staff. It was only later in the evening that Angie realised that she had left our passports, airline tickets and credit cards in the safe of the previous hostel, 3 hours drive away! Cue mad panic, but it was all sorted as they gave it to the driver of a backpacker bus who dropped it in to our hostel the next day. Thank goddness we were on the tourist trail.
In Rotorua, we started with a walk around the town taking in the park (full of steaming lakes and whole sections of ground that had recently caved in, surrounded by formal gardens - a very strange combination), a lake with serene black swans and a Maori village. The church in this village had a stained glass window showing Jesus wearing a Maori costume! It was an interesting comparison to the churches we saw in South America where Catholicism had been adapted to fit the tribal religions there, and statues of Mary were surrounded by offerings of Coca leaves.
Enough culture, now it was time for some fun: we took a gondala (cable car) up to a mini theme park overlooking the town. There was a massive bungy swing (a 3 seater chair that was pulled up in the air and swung out over the mountainside at 150kph) that we didn't go on but had great fun watching the riders scream, and the world's first Luge ride. We were well up for the luge and after getting our helmets fitted (Angie got extra knee and elbow padding, being the scaredy cat that she is) we climbed into the go-cart type vehicles for the first 2km ride down the hillside on a winding concrete track. Of course Darren nearly came a cropper while taking a corner at breakneck speed, but it was great fun so we decided that we would try the expert run omniously named 'Big Dipper'. We soon knew why it was called that when we turned a corner and came face to face with a near vertical stretch of track - even Darren was screaming like a big girl as we hurtled down it.
When the fun was over we headed back to base and prepared for a mud bath at a local spa. Well we could have gone to a classy spa but Angie booked us in at the spa treatment unit of the local hospital. It was very nice though, if slightly reminiscent of 70s NHS. They tried to make it a bit more luxurious with the addition of a potted palm, but it couldn't disguise the curtained cubicles and concrete floor. We lazed in the muddy water for half an hour, or at least Angie did, but Darren's attention span didn't last that long and he evacuated to the cold shower after twenty. The next day our skin felt the softest it had ever been!
Leaving Rotorua, we headed south towards Taupo. Taupo sits on the edge of Lake Taupo which was formed by the biggest volcanic eruption ever known. Fact! 26,500 years ago an estimated 800 cubic km of ash and pumice were pumped out in the eruption (Mount St Helens produced only 3). The entire North Island which would have been covered in this messy stuff up to 100m deep.
On the way, we did some sightseeing:
We walked up to the crater lake of Rainbow Mountain. The lake was a deep turquoise but the mountain had been a bit optimistically named and was mainly white, grey and red.
We swam in Kerosene Creek, the only place in the area where you can swim in a hot spring for free. It was most bizarre - a stream gurgling through the forest and opening up into a little waterfall and pool, but with hot water. So hot in fact that we could only stay in about 10 minutes. It was lovely to get out and cool off in the sunshine. A big difference from the thermal pool we swam in in Bolivia where getting out was a freezing ordeal.
We visited the Hidden Valley thermal park, where scenes from the BBC's 'Walking with dinosaurs' series was filmed. This was a pretty amazing place and felt suitably prehistoric. See photos for more stuff about it.
We stopped at Huka falls, which are not particularly high or wide, but are famous for the volume of water that passes through a narrow rocky gorge - 62000 gallons a second at peak flow (a speed of 220m per second). The falls awe inducing abilities are enhanced by the fact that the water is an unnaturally bright turquoise colour.
Taupo is the adventure capital of the North Island and everywhere you look there are posters urging you to jump off a bridge on a bit of elastic, throw yourself out of a plane, sit on a bit of inflatable plastic through rapids etc. So, when in Rome... After deliberating for a while over which adventure activity was for us, we decided we had better go the whole hog and do a skydive (also it is the cheapest place to do it in the country)! We booked it only 18 hours in advance so it all felt rather dreamlike - didn't really have time to get too nervous.
After getting togged up in our jump suits we met our tandem masters, the guys we were entrusting our lives to, and what a bunch of crazies they were. It seems that adrenalin junkies are also first class loons. Their jokes about the kit were slightly unerving but by the time we were 12,000ft up we had to trust them. The tiny plane held 6 jumpers and 6 tandem masters and we were squashed together in a very cosy fashion. Once we reached the drop zone they opened the door and you could feel and hear the roar of wind and the first real butterflies in your stomach. Angie was fourth out and Darren was last, so he had the nerve-wracking opportunity of watching everyone else disappear out of the door. When it is your turn you have to shuffle forward to the door, sit down and 'pop' your legs out of the plane while you have your photo taken!
The first few seconds are crazy - your brain hasn't got a clue what is going on because of the overload on the senses, then when you recover you are hurtling towards the ground at 200kph. The 45 seconds of freefall seems to least only about 10 seconds. There was a lot of cloud on our jump so the first 25 seconds or so you are falling towards them and can't see the ground, then suddenly you plunge through the cloud (it gets very cold) and emerge to see the view stretching out before you, then 'whooomph! the parachute is deployed jerking your body into an upright position and you start to float down. Angie's tandem master let her pull the parachute cords to make it go into a crazy spiral, but Darren's had obviously seen him on the luge and thought better of it.
According to the guy who owns the company we jumped with, sky dives have acquired the status of a fair ground ride now, with so many people just doing the one jump. We would both definitely do another, but it would have to be 15000 feet next time! Once on solid ground we saw watched the DVD that Angie had had taken of her jump - the camera was on the arm of her tandem master closeups of her facial contortions and weird flappy cheeks while freefalling have been captured for everyone to see.
Taupo also holds the glamorous title of Trout fishing capital of the world. We visited the National Trout Centre (only coz it was free!) and feed the huge rainbow trout that breed naturally in the rivers.
South of Taupo is Tongarioro National Park which is home to three volcanoes, two of which are the most active composite volcanoes in the world. One of those was Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. The Tongariro Crossing is said to be the best one-day walk in the country and we were all set to tackle the taxing 17km. But the weather was having none of it. We deliberated for hours as to whether we should cut our losses and head south earlier, or hang around in the park for a couple of days until the forecast better weather arrived (and sacrifice some time in the South Island). Finally, over hot chocolate, in front of a roaring fire in the lobby of the very posh Chateau hotel, with hail thrashing against the windows (could all that have affected our decision making?!), we made the choice to shelve the walk and get going for Wellington.
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Rotorua Hotels
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