In Hot Water
Trip Start
Oct 15, 2007
1
55
97
Trip End
Aug 24, 2008
Rotorua,
North Island,
New Zealand
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
We found somewhere to park and went to the tourist information office, looking for information on the nearby Department of Conservation (DOC) campsites. We were directed to the DOC office, which was just down the corridor, where we collected information leaflets which told us not only of the sites in the area, but throughout both islands.
The Department of Conservation provide a range of campsites, usually located in some of the prettiest areas of the country. The sites fall into three categories, from basic (just a toilet and a field), through standard (variable, but may have taps, cooking shelters, picnic benches etc. as well as the toilet) to serviced (again variable, but may well include showers, an office, telephone: more like a normal campsite). The fees are all pretty low; many of the basic sites are free, up to around $15-20 dollars per person for a serviced site. There were a few around Rotorua, so we thought we might stay at one.
Having done this and looked around the town a little bit, we decided to go and investigate Kerosene Creek, the only free thermal pool in the area. There were several thermal baths in Rotorua itself, but this one was out of town a short distance and was, according to the guidebook, a series of natural pools in a thermal river. Sounded nice. In addition, it sounded free.
We found the unsealed road to the pools and followed it until we reached a small area with a couple of hire campervans parked in it. Assuming that this must therefore be the place, we drew the curtains, changed into swimming kit and removed various bits of jewellery, having read that the mineral content of the water can result in immediate tarnishing of silver and other metals.
We wandered down the track beside a steaming river, finding a small pool with a few people in it. Following the river a little further, we came to a much larger pool, the rocks around the edge discoloured to a marbled series of greens and blues, presumably by the water's mineral content. Climbing in was akin to getting into a bath that you've run too hot: it involved the lower body turning quite pink and a few "ahh ahh ahh" exclamations and that noise you make when you suck in air through slightly clenched teeth. It was hot. Incredibly hot.
Once accustomed to the temperature, it was really quite nice, and we swam around for a while. Once out, we dried out extremely quickly, the water being so much hotter than body temperature, and went for a shower. We had filled our solar shower and left it in the back of the van, which hadn't done a fantastic job of heating it up, but really, that wasn't too much of a problem given the river we'd just left. After a bit of grunting and stretching, Jacob suspended it from the highest branch he could sensibly reach, and we set about hosing ourselves down. We were both quite surprised that twenty litres of water was sufficient to adequately wash the pair of us, including a thorough rinse of the hair.
Jacob set about repairing the broken folding chair. He never leaves home without his trusty pouch of 'useful stuff', and again, it lived up to its name. A cable tie and some Gaffer tape later, Kirsty cautiously sat on the chair...which didn't collapse. We have seating.
We began preparing a meal for the evening, having checked around to ensure there were no No Camping signs anywhere about. This all underway, a security bloke from the logging company whose camp the road eventually ran to turned up, and very apologetically told us we couldn't stay overnight. Apparently we were a fire risk. That was the long and short of the argument. People can visit, park, swim, stay for hours, cook (!), but not close the doors of the van which is allowed to be there and sleep in it. Well, actually, they can sleep. Just not overnight. That would be a fire risk. Yeah, well, now you put it like that, it makes so much sense.
We found quite a big layby on the main road near the turn off for the creek, and settled in for the night.
Dawn broke to reveal that we had parked next to, amongst other items, two microwaves and a toaster.
We drove back into Rotorua, spent quite a while running errands, cursed the torrential rain which sprang up out of nowhere whilst we shopped, and, after a bit of internetty admin stuff, went to find some food. The errands had expanded to fill most of the day, and we became aware, at about half past four, that we needed breakfast. Curly fries, ribs, chicken wings and beer: the cornerstones of any nutritious breakfast. Quite a nice pub, as it happens: 'The Pig & Whistle', which had been the Rotorua Police Station for many years, and had a variety of old Police type artefacts displayed around the walls. Despite how that sounds, it avoided being tacky.
After a brief natter with the barmaid, who turned out to be from Nottingham, we drove off out of town to look for one of the nearest DOC campsites, at 'Ash Pit Road'. Sounds lovely. In our search, we discovered a feature of the DOC 'Conservation Campsites' booklets which we would come to know and love. It's a little game they include in their directions called 'What the bloody hell do you mean?', and it goes something like this...
There's a not especially detailed diagrammatic map of a large region of the country, with a series of numbered dots on it. Each dot refers to a site listed in the book. Each site listing is accompanied by what appears to be a perfectly reasonable set of directions, along the lines of "Take SH1 until the Wakitipikiti road. Take Twittery Flit Lane and follow to end (approx. 12km). Gravel road access". OK, sounds manageable, right? Firstly, when you reach SH1's unlabelled crossroads with the Wakitipikiti road (which isn't called "Wakitipikiti Road", it's just the road which goes to Wakitipikiti), which way do you turn? Then, after how long do you expect to find Twittery Flit Lane? How many unmarked roads do you pass before turning (in which direction), into the unmarked Twittery Flit Lane? What is 12km from what? Is it a 12km gravel road from the end of Twittery Flit Lane? What the bloody hell do you mean?
The campsite then turns out to indeed be 12km away from something. It's 12km away from the unremarkable bit of road in between a couple of other unremarkable bits of road, which is 12km away. The road which leads to it is not called Twittery Flit Lane. The picture of the campsite, which depicts only a picnic bench, is of somewhere else. Somewhere with a picnic bench.
Generally, you end up knowing that you're going the right way only when you get to where you're going and read the sign which has fallen off the gate. This particular evening, we knew the site was by a lake, so Jacob navigated to the most appropriate looking bit of lakeshore, and there it was. No worries.
It's probably fair to point out that there's no such place as Wakitipikiti, but if there was you'd have to pass the junction with Twittery Flit Lane to get there. Well, as far as we know there isn't, although that probably qualifies what we've just written as being a pretty damn good set of DOC directions.
On the up side, the campsite was lovely. We found ourselves a nice flattish bit under some trees, as the sun began to sink into the lake. We put up our 'awning' (scraggy old oil-stained tarpaulin held together with gaffer tape, strapped on with bungees across the roof and propped up with tent poles from K-Mart), whereupon the sun set, plunging us into darkness as the rain started. Awning removed, we retired to the van, ate the remains of last night's soup, and went to bed.
The following morning was lovely. DOC 'Standard' campsites often have cooking shelters, and pretty much always have a tap, so Kirsty set about doing some washing while Jacob made banana pancakes and a pot of coffee. See, it's not all squalor and SuperNoodles when you live in the back of an old van.
That done, we drove into town and took some illicit photos. There's a big geyser, name of Pohutu, the plumes of hot water and steam from which we had seen above a hotel roof as we drove in and out of town, but which we hadn't seen close up as it's within the grounds of the improbably named Whakarewarewa resort and they charge for viewing. For a few quid, we'd have gone in, but as it was part of a Rotorua Thermal Magic Experience package thing with Maori dancing and the like included, costing twenty-odd dollars each. We just wanted to see a big spout of hot water, produced and maintained entirely by natural forces, and baulked therefore at having to grease anyone's palm to do so. So we parked by the hotel and took photos through the fence by the kitchen door. Hah.
Gushing steaming water duly captured for posterity, we tried to flog our sewing machine to a pawn shop. They, knowing they'd have to try to sell it again, didn't even bother looking at it, the trade in aging sewing machines not being exactly brisk, so Kirsty went and found a charity shop while Jacob sat and waited. If you can avoid carrying a sewing machine around on a hot day, you should.
The machine having been dumped with the Salvation Army, we went to 'Valentines', a chain of all-you-can-eat buffet places, to eat all we could. It was all edible, and some of the cakes were fairly tasty, but really, it was just a cheap way to stuff ourselves.
The 'Buried Village' outside Rotorua sounded like it might be quite interesting. In 1886 the eruption of Mt. Tarawera destroyed the enormously popular Pink and White Terraces - a then world famous series of thermal pools on the shores of nearby Lake Rotomahana - and buried several villages including the tourist resort of Te Wairoa, killing 153 people. The seventeen kilometre rift which opened up passed right through the lake, and having showered ash, boulders and hot mud on the surrounding area, left behind a hundred metre deep crater. This eventually filled with water, to become a much larger Lake Rotomahana, thirty metres higher than the original.
The little museum thing was quite interesting, if a bit school group orientated. There was a film, shown on a screen in a mock up of a hotel dining room, in the form of a monologue by Edwin Bainbridge, the English guest who was staying at the Rotomahana Hotel in Te Wairoa, put together from excerpts from his journal. Despite quite a few mentions being made of his being from Newcastle Upon Tyne, he was played by a Kiwi actor, with a Kiwi accent. Did Victorian Geordies sound like modern day Kiwis? Perhaps not.
What should have been the star of the piece, the buried buildings themselves, were a tremendous disappointment. All artefacts from them were in display cases in the museum, not in the buildings themselves, which seemed a bit of a shame. The items thus seemed rather out of context where they now stood, and the houses were just shells. If they had wanted to avoid museum-ifying the buildings to completely preserve the state in which they had been left by the volcano, then fair enough, but they'd been excavated, and new shiny red corrugated tin rooves had been put on them. They were connected by a neat little winding gravel path, dotted with terrible, syrupy, twee little information boards in the form of fictitious "Dear Mother, the volcano seems to be smouldering, God will protect us though, Love Margaret" letters home from nineteenth century tourists.
One received no impression, sited as they were in such trimmed and clipped country garden surroundings, that they had ever been houses. Sure, ground level was a few feet up their walls, but they looked more like a series of dugout storage huts than a buried village. Selling itself as the Southern Hemisphere's answer to Pompeii, there was no sense at all that this was a vibrant thriving popular holiday town which had been frozen in time by the massive forces of nature. More a bunch of sheds in a garden. All very sanitised.
The buried village experience partially rescued by quite a nice short walk which ran from the site round to a waterfall, we drove back out to Kerosene Creek for another dip in the hot pools. This time, the upper of the two pools was vacant, and its armchair shaped waterfall available to sit in, which was, once we'd steeled ourselves against the combined heat and power of the water, quite fantastic. Couldn't hear a right lot though.
All thermal-pooled out, we warned the German family, who appeared to be making moves to settle in for the evening in their van, about the possibility of being moved on, and moved on, heading south for Taupo.
