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Mount Maunganui
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The journey to Mount Maunganui was broken up by stopping first just outside Roturua to see some of the Geothermal activity it is known for. This was incredible to see although very smelly due to the sulpher being omited from the erupting mud pools. We then reached Roturua itself and the bus stopped here for a couple of hours around lunchtime. Although we didn´t have a huge amount of time in Rotorua it was enough for us to be able to do the legendary Luge. The Luge is Kiwi ingenuity at its best and Roorua´s Luge was the first one to be designed. The luge is basically an awesome gravity ride on a 3 wheel cart. The braking and steering system gives you complete control so you can go as fast or slow as you like. There were three separate concrete sealed tracks which wound down through the redwood trees. As we chose to only go for 2 luge runs we both did one on the scenic track (the longest one) which had viewing bays on the way down as well as not being particularly steep so we could get the hang of it. Flis did her second ride on the intermediate track and Henry unsuprisingly went for the advanced. We then had a while before we had to get back on the bus to continue to Mount Maunganui so after having our sarnies for lunch waited patiently outside for the bus to reappear.
After a lot more driving we finally arrived in Mount Maunganui, late afternoon. Mount M is New Zealands main holiday destination for Kiwi´s and was certianly rather upmarket. The hostel we stayed at wasn´t too close to the centre so we didn´t venture very far, in fact the furthest Henry went, was to the bottle shop! The hostel had everything we needed for the night and we ended up having a 6 bed dorm to ourselves which was a nice suprise. Another night with a few beers, a couple of card games and then it was off to sleep with the knowledge we were going Black Water Rafting the next day....!
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Where I stayed:
Pacific Coast Backpackers
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