Days 87-89 - Orewa - Rotorua
Trip Start
Nov 29, 2007
1
57
70
Trip End
Mar 27, 2008
Rotorua,
New Zealand
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
I had already decided which campsite we were going to stay in (there are plenty to choose from) and we found it pretty easily. Cosy Cottage holiday park is a beautiful campsite with a swimming pool, private mineral baths and nice kitchen. It also has a Hangi cooker here. This is basically a hole in the ground and uses the steam caused by the thermal activity of the area to steam your food and this is the way the Maouri's traditionally cooked their food. Rotorua is the strangest place I have ever been, the ground is warm with the thermal activity. We were told it has a 'rotten egg' smell and you can smell the sulphur but I wouldn't describe it like that, we don't think it is such an unpleasant smell. We can hear bubbling from our van and there is steam rising from over the hedge. After we had set the van up, we went to explore and found a boiling mud pool on the campsite. This totally fascinated me, it is bubbling away (sounds like something boiling on the stove) and you can see how hot it is from all the steam rising from it. It is fenced off because it is, of course dangerously hot and there are children here. We stayed awhile just watching it, this is the strangest campsite I've ever been to. Next, we went through a little gate and there is a track, beside it is boiling, bubbling water and mud (kind of like a mud lake). This is what we can hear bubbling from our van and where the steam is coming from. It is really amazing and weird to think what is going on right beneath our feet - there is also a thermal stream, steam is everywhere. We walked along the track to get to 'hot water beach' which in our opinion is not a beach. I suppose it is kind of sand (black sand) but it looks more like mud and the area is tiny. You are supposed to dig a hole and sit in it and the hole fills with thermally heated hot mineral water. We can see where people have dug holes, it looks like they fill with mud more than anything else. A bit too muddy and messy for us, we gave it a miss. The lake itself doesn't look too clean either, there is a lot of debris around the edges, I wouldn't like to swim in it. I put my hand in the water - cold (very). It is a huge lake and if you ignore the debris, it is pretty with the scenery in the background. We went back to camp to get showered, changed and fed, ready for our evening. We wondered how bad it would be for mozzie's here with the water and ground being hot, would it be better or worse?
When it got dark, there were absolutely hundreds of bugs but they weren't mozzie's. We saw a notice up in the kitchen, they are lake flies and they don't bite. But there were thousands of them everywhere. Everytime a car came through camp we could see them all in the headlights. They are attracted to white light as I discovered when I sat out with my headlamp on, writing in my diary. It was impossible and I soon gave it up as a bad job. We still sat outside for the evening with some candles lit - they weren't so attracted to the yellow glow of the candles. It was nice (it was warm) and we enjoyed ourselves.
The next morning, we had a lie in and we had a lovely relaxing and lazy day. We have come here to see the Waiotapu thermal wonderland but have discovered it is half way between here and our next destination of Lake Taupo. So, we are going to see it on our way there tomorrow and today, we have a day just to enjoy the sun and this lovely campsite.
We went swimming in the pool here, then we enjoyed the mineral spa pools of which there are three. That was wonderful, the water was perfect bathwater temperature and we both laid in it for ages - it was gorgeous and mineral water is supposed to be healing (maybe take the itch out of our bites). We lazed about sunbathing, the ground is warm to lay on so we got toasted both sides. Then we had a walk and booked our ferry for the 27th. It was a lovely day, I caught up a bit on my writing and we generally had a good time. That evening, another spaceship turned up with four people in it. You can have a pod that attatches to the roof and sleeps two up there so it can accomodate four. We swapped our DVDs (still nothing much good - where's all the Lord of the rings copies?) We chatted to them for a bit, they were two young english couples that have been travelling for a month in the spaceship. They have come from the South Island and haven't been on the North Island for very long, they only have a week left to get to Auckland where they drop off their van. It was nice to chat to them, they are nice people.
Later, we watched one of the DVDs they gave us and I wish I could remember the name of it to warn others not to bother, it was so bad. It was absolute rubbish from beginning to end and quite possibly the worst film either of us have ever seen. I can't believe we watched it all the way to the end.
