Rotorua - smelly town!

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Trip Start Mar 12, 2007 Previous
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  Rotorua, New Zealand
Monday, June 11, 2007

We left Tongariro National Park yesterday about 9am and drove to Rotorua via Lake Taupo.  The weather has been rainy and cold the last couple of days and Lake Taupo is quite an outdoors place so we decided to visit it but not to stay the night.

We went to the Huka Falls in Lake Taupo which were impressive.  Tonnes of water from the river gets squashed into a channel 10m wide and 12m deep so the result is a pretty powerful waterfall.

We also went to the dam which they open at certain times of the day.  We were there at 12pm when the gates opened and the water gushed out, flooding the area below the bridge on it's way to Lake Taupo.

The road between Lake Taupo and Rotorua is called the Thermal Highway and for good reason.  There is steam all around (it must be permanently cloudy here) and it's quite eerie to see

Huka Falls near Lake Taupo

.  We stopped at a place called 'Craters of the Moon' to see craters, bubbling mud pools and fumeros.

We arrived in Rotorua about lunch time and went to the Kiwi Experience before it closed.  It's great there.  They are conserving Northern Brown Kiwis by incubating the eggs, hatching them safely and then releasing the birds into the wild when they can fend for themselves.  If the eggs are left alone in the wild, they are almost always eaten by stoats, possums and dogs.  Most are killed and so the birds are facing extinction.  We saw 3 kiwis which were amazing - they're unlike any other bird.  They have marrow in their bones and very big feet.  Their bill is very long and thin so they can poke around for food (their eyesight is poor and they're nocturnal).

The hostel in Rotorua is ok.  It has a big kitchen/diner, a pool table, a thermal pool (which we haven't used yet) and a bar.  The room is really small though - only just enough space for the 2 of us and our bags!

Today we left at 9am to get to Wai-O-Tapu.  There is a geyser there which erupts at 10:15am each day (with a little help from someone who pours soap in the hole - it starts it off apparently!)

Lake Rotorua

.  It was quite cool although there were loads of people there so it got a bit crowded (we're not used to that here!).  We wandered around the thermal park for about an hour.

This afternoon we visited the Buried Village which was about 15 mins away from Rotorua.  It was buried in the late 1800s when Mount Tarawera erupted.  The village was a big tourist attraction as it was close to the pink and white terraces.  Unfortunately these were destroyed by the volcano and so was the village.  It's been excavated over the last 75 years and is pretty interesting.

Rotorua is growing on us although the smell of sulphur certainly isn't!  At first I didn't like the town.  It's made up of big roads which resemble the Purley Way.  However once you drive around a bit there's more to it.  There are some smaller streets to explore and a beautiful lake with black swans on it.  The surroundings are pretty too - lots of lakes and mountains.

Tomorrow we're hoping to stay in Waitomo and on the way we are going to visit Matamata where the 'Hobbiton' village was filmed in Lord of the Rings.  I'll update from Waitomo.  P.S Bill managed to edit the canyon swing photos so they've been added to the Te Anau entry - enjoy!

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Stinky Craters!

The geyser erupting

Wai-O-Tapu thermal reserve

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