The eggy Place
Trip Start
Jul 24, 2007
1
25
50
Trip End
Nov 11, 2007
Rotorua,
New Zealand
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
Rotorua is the major geothermal active centre of the north island as the town is built of a volcanic crater and passes right over the pacific fault line. This is where the earth's crust is the thinnest anywhere on land in the world and you can see it and you can smell it!
River Walk
! The whole place place smells like someone has done an eggy fart and I thought for a moment some of my friends were with me!!!! The smell isn't as bad as I expected and the degrees of egginess varies throughout the day and depend on how close you are to the mud pools or geyers but they are everywhere - in the parks, randomly along the roadside and in peoples gardens you just see huge billows of steam appearing. Most of them have been fenced off but you can go look in the parks for free.so Rotorua is also home to the Zorb which is like a giant beach ball which you get inside, they add a bit of warm water and a couple of friends if you want and they push you down a hill - its pretty cool. To get out of the Zorb you have to come back through the hole they pushed you in (and they do shove you in!!) and you come out along with all the water that they put in with you, it looks kinda like the ball has given birth to you! You can hire clothes from the people if you want (can't keep them though) but they do give you a towel so you don't freeze when you get out - they also take pictures for you and then want to rip you off to buy them - the usual stuff!
The Luge is also in Rotorua which is a go Karting Track basically which runs down the side of the mountain - there are a few different runs and its pretty cheap and the gondola that takes you to the top of the mountain where the Luge starts has some awesome views over Rotorua and all its steamy bits so its a pretty cool place
Swing Bridge
. It was raining when we got to the luge, pretty hard and as I have the start of a cold I decided not to participate which I think was a pretty good idea when everyone else that done it came in soaked through and freezing cold!Everyone in the group came to a place called the Tamaki Maori Village which is a kind of cultural heritage centre run by the local Maori - its the best one I've seen - its outside of town and they do the whole traditional song and dance and explain their heritage to you, which they are immensely proud of, they have built a replica of a Maori Village in the woods and you can go round to each house, food store etc and they demonstrate how they would have done things, weapons they had, the food they found etc etc - it was so good and then they fed us. Maori cook pretty much the same way as Fijians and Cook Islanders with the underground over but they call it a hungi and the food was amazing so we had pretty busy brains and full bellies tonight we also had a crazy bus driver who took us back to the hostel, a maori guy called Sonny who made the entire bus sing "she'll be coming round the mountain" and kept going round the roundabout until we we're all loud enough - It was a really great night all for the price of about £28
Stayed in the Kiwi Paka in Rotorua which claims to be a YHA but it is actually not and you get no discount for being a YHA member and its $29 and too far out of town - don't stay there!!!
Comments
the farts!
ha ha, i loved the comment about the eggy farts, hope you were thinking about lisa or keri, obviously mine only smell of roses!! xxx