Day 9: Rotorua

Another gorgeous sunny day here in Kiwi land. We had a slow start but then spent almost all day at Waimangu Volcanic Valley. This valley is the site of several significant volcanic eruptions in the late 19th and early 20th C and remains extremely active. Everywhere you look, steam is coming out of vents in the sides of mountains or bubbling up through lakes...I just today learned how to use the video function on our camera--so these are very basic; I haven't yet mastered the audio or editing stuff but will keep working on it. (Note: no success with uploading videos right now so will try again later. Still photos will have to suffice in the meantime.) This is Frying Pan Lake; the whole surface is just writhing with steam!

This is Inferno Crater, intensely blue, very acidic, and varying in depth during a convoluted cycle of days and weeks by over 8 meters.

Some nice Scottish walkers took this photo of Hal and me ;-)

The heat and chemicals create some really interesting colors and deposits of both mineral and vegetable varieties.

Everything is covered with heavy vegetation...feels very prehistoric sometimes.

Beautiful and fascinating place. Well worth the visit. Have we mentioned how hilly New Zealand is? We did a lot of steps and ups and downs today.

That's it from the Rotorua area. We head for Wellington tomorrow morning. Dear friend Marianne's brother and sister-in-law (Art & Josemi) have graciously offered to let us stay with them for a couple nights and then we will fly to the south island. Not sure when we will be back online.

Day 8: Rotorua

Well, we packed this day full. This is the first day since we've arrived that we woke to clear blue skies instead of the usual morning marine air clouds. This is a picture out our deck windows and the front of our condo with our trusty little Toyota.

We started by renting kayaks for a couple of hours, intending to cruise out onto Lake Rotoiti. There is a river channel which connects it to Lake Rotorua and the kayaking place is there, so we paddled along through lush vegetation, saw lots of birds. When we got to L. Rotoiki  the wind had kicked up and it was a struggle to get anywhere, so we headed back into the channel, paddled all the way to the other end at Lake Rotorua, where our resort is located, and then we were out of time.

 We came home, had a bit of lunch, put on slightly drier clothes and shoes and headed north toward Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty. We went to Mount Maunganui to the east of Tauranga; didn't take account of the fact that apparently yesterday was a school holiday and the place was absolutely wall to wall bodies! We drove around for half an hour looking for a place to park. We did finally succeed--for which efforts I earned an ice cream-- and walked up the "Mall" along the harbor to reach the 3.5 km walk around the base of the mountain. It was really stunning, surrounded by the bay and the sea on almost all sides. 

 Saw sheep up close for the first time, surprising it took this long since they are supposed to outnumber the people here...

 This is the Maori name for the Mount.

Came back, grabbed another video for the evening, and then enjoyed our first dinner "out" at the nearby Amora resort restaurant. Nice setting and beautiful old buildings. Decent food and a lovely glass of NZ sauvignon blanc...also a first since arriving.