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Rotorua: Hell's Gate and Luge
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4-18 Hell's Gate & Luge Jose: So we woke up from our first night camping, (not really, we slept in a campervan in a motor home park in a small town called Rotorua, hardly camping...more like after our first night hillbillying it) we decided to go visit a local Maori village called Hell's Gate because it is the most active thermal pools in the southern hemisphere, translated it means really hot water caused by hot lava underground. The first sign that we were getting close was the god awful smell of sulfur. Once we arrived we bought our ticket and began the self guided tour which basically means you walk around reading signs. The place was pretty nauseating but also mesmerizing. You can see in the pictures how the mud explodes from being so hot, kind of like boiling water but only with mud. It was crazy to think that it was all natural. Apparently the tribe that inhabited the area over hundreds of years used the pools of boiling water to cook with, but the real freaky thing is they would only cook in pools that had bacteria growing all around them. The reason is that the bacteria apparently cleanses the water, kind of like sterilizing it. The other pools were used for different ceremonies and one in particular was used to bath in (legend had it they could see the future from bathing in the pools, locals assured me it was not true...at least not for them). The water temp in that pool was luke warm to warm. Some of the pools were later named biblical terms such as Sodom and Gomorrah, had temperatures in excess of 300 degrees Celsius, which I am totaling guessing to be about 700 degrees Fahrenheit. There's a legend that a princess jumped in that pool after feeling unwanted and dishonored and almost instantly dissolved. It was pretty incredible to witness mud explode. Birds also would avoid the area all together, because some of the pools are luke warm but others or boiling hot and you really can't tell the difference. The mud pools were pretty easy to point out and you could definitely see that it was way to hot to go near. After our leisure walk through hell, named that way since they believed that hell must look something like this place, we got to try corn cooked in the steam of one of the pools(Amazing!!!) and then we tried wood carving. After we were done they stained it for us which I thought was nice but a little strange, and then I found out that you can't leave new Zealand with any kind of wood unless it is treated...go figure...can't bring anything in and can't take anything out.
After leaving hell we decided to head towards the luge, at the time I didn't know what to expect, I thought it was the luge you see on the Olympics, I had heard of the luge from two workers on the Sky Jump the day before who basically said..."ohh your going to Rotorua...You have to go on the Luge it's the best thing in Rotorua." So taking their advice I got directions from our friendly motor home attendant and so we were off. What the luge turned out to be was a version of go kart racing, only without engines and down a mountain. At first I was turned off by the idea but then I figured what the heck, so we took a gondola ride to the top of the mountain were the luge was. The views from the Gondola were amazing we took several pictures ascending and then headed for our first ride. They had scenic, intermediate and advanced so Andrea and I started off on the scenic route. It was really challenging at first because basically your steering wheel is also the brake. If you pull to far on it or if you don't pull far enough you brake. Well with my height being a good 6 inches above the average in the area, my knees held me from braking properly which made for an awesome ride, a little scary but nonetheless awesome. Andrea on the other hand was not feeling it. As soon as we reached the bottom she let me know just how much she disliked the ride. Seeing that she was pretty insistent on not going again, despite my pleas, she headed off to get a cappuccino at the restaurant overlooking the mountain while I headed to conquer intermediate and then advanced. Everything was going fine until I got to advanced. Flying through some of these turns at god awful speeds with limited braking capability made me quite nervous. At several points down the mountain I was on one wheel with my legs trying to counter balance out in no man's land. I crashed several times, none causing severe injury but I got my whistle cleaned at least twice. The most embarrassing part was watching kids 10 to 12 years old making my death defying turns look like piece of cake. I'm sure they were looking at me thinking ... "Boy in America they must not drive cars!!!" Anyways, with my bruised ego I took the gondola once more to pick up Andrea. We took a scenic gondola ride down and decided to have lunch in our campervan. Lunch consisted of what else but ham and cheese ...the same one from the day before and probably our main staple for the next week or so...Andrea has just reminded me of her delicatessen peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. We decided that since we had eaten so well in Argentina(who could forget El Desnivel) and since we wanted to do so much adventure stuff in New Zealand we decided to save money by eating cheaply...real cheaply. That lasted until later that night when we decided to have dinner at the Four Fish restaurant in some random small town. We ate at about 5:30 because by 6 everything would be closed...that's right 6pm. 6pm is the equivalent of 4am Miami Time, everyone is asleep and in their beds by 6pm, and that includes gas stations. At the restaurant I had an incredible piece of red meat, Ostrich...Ostrich you ask ...yes Ostrich...it's red meat just like a steak...when they brought it to me I thought they made a mistake...but no, ostrich is amazing, nothing quite like it, but it definitely reminds me of steak. After dinner we drove to the Waitomo Caves and decided to camp in the parking lot of the adventure shop for the caves. Andrea was a little apprehensive about staying there but she soon got over it and we went to bed. I woke up several times hearing what sounded like a motor running...Andrea later informed me that it was our refrigerator...of coarse that was after I sweat bullets all night trying to figure out why I kept on hearing a motor turn on and off every couple hours...I even checked the windows several times to make sure we were safe. Anyways, the big story that day in the newspaper was the shooting in Virginia. So I figure we're pretty safe camping considering EVERYONE does it, even the locals. Well, till tomorrow goodnight.
Love Jose and Andrea More thumbnails ...
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