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.

Day 7: Rotorua

We did indeed spend several hours at the Maori cultural centre, Te Puia. Some of the original 7 tribes settled here because of the advantageous thermal features which heated homes, cooked food, provided warm bathing...

It's not really that hard to pronounce, just difficult to do it with speed and grace ;-)
They did a show in the meeting house preceded by sending a representative out to meet our chief (some unlucky fool from Colorado named Josh "volunteered"), and then some traditional songs and dances. Most of them were moving way to fast to capture with a camera using flash settings, so apologies for the poor quality.

There was also a re-creation of a traditional village, a weaving school, a carving school and a nice gift shop where we traded $NZ for goods to take home to the local natives.

They are participating in efforts to protect the rapidly disappearing kiwis. No pics of them as they are nocturnal and you aren't allowed to take pictures of them in their little kiwi house!

Finally, we went to see the boiling mud and the Pohutu Geyser.

Went into Rotorua as planned, got a guest card for the Automobile Association along with a whole bag full of really good in-country maps, wandered around town, bought more groceries, filled the car with gas, and made reservations to go kayaking tomorrow morning.  That's it for now.

Day 6: Home

It rained all day so we took the day off from activities. Did laundry, planned our next few days' itinerary, read (me), took naps (Hal), and generally rested up. Hal tried in vain to find a broadcast of the Super Bowl.  Oh well, we missed all the great commercials. Heading out this morning to the Maori cultural centre, Te Puia, and to find the Automobile Association for a map of Wellington.

Day 5: Rotorua

OK, we expected to watch rugby on TV, but dart throwing championships?! And while we're on the subject of cultural differences, I know we all speak the same language, but doesn't "sachet" sound so much better than "garbage bag" ?? And one of my faves, for which I provided a picture below, is their term for shopping cart ;-)

It has been pissing down rain since the middle of the night so we are having a lazy morning at home. We may be running out of sunny days here based on the online weather forecasts, but we hear it's balmy (40's & 50's) in Bend.   We started the day with another 2 hour hike in the Whakarewarewa Forest, walking through some big California redwoods and past sulfur springs.

Then we drove into town to see the Rotorua Museum, which is situated in Government Gardens. Hal watched a bowling match, I took pictures of flowers and then we went into the museum, which was originally built to be a bath house for people "taking the cure" of the various hot mineral waters and mud baths.

They used x-ray, electricity, and vibratory stimulation to treat people from all over the world. Unfortunately, the sulfur in the waters immediately corroded all the pipes and interacted with the lead in the white painted furniture and walls, turning everything black--generally the place was a maintenance nightmare. Still it stayed in business for about the first 50 years of the 20th C treating celebrities, soldiers returning from the war, and the rich folks who came on cruise ships for several week stays. You're able to go down into the basement to see some of the old treatment rooms and pipes for bringing in water. Also, visitors can go the attic and get an amazing view of the surrounding sulfur springs and lake Rotorua.

Now the building is a wonderful museum with a large standing collection and narrative presentation of artifacts about the original settlers of NZ. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures of this part. Surprisingly, there was a special collection on display from WOW (World of Wearable Art) with winning costumes on display. My favorite, "EOS" for Evolution of Spirit, involved a hand-made beaded wire costume requiring 1,000 hours of work over a 4-month period to create. Alas my pic is blurry but you get the idea. I didn't even try to take pictures of the mini-collection of special bras from WOW because they were in glass cases and I knew the flash would make them unviewable; nevertheless, suffice it to say that one was made from kitchen utensils,  one from fiberglass with operational mini-cranes attached to the shoulders, and one was made from the artists' two deceased budgiebriars (aka parakeets) with spare feathers from an anonymous donor.  The heads were strategically located. 

All in all, an interesting museum well worth the visit.

Rotorua: Day 4

There are a million things to do around here. This is the volcanic hot spot of NZ and also a major center of Maori culture. We decided to start with something familiar, a hike in the woods. There is actually a huge (13,993 acres) specimen forest--Whakarewarewa (don't ask ME how to pronounce it)-- planted slightly over a century ago just outside the city.  Over 170 species were brought to the site in order to determine which could provide viable lumbering. It is multi-use, with trails for walkers, mountain bikers, and horses. We took the route that overlooked some thermal features and went through some very dense stands of trees. The ferns are everywhere and you can see why they are a common symbolic expression of NZ. Some of the tree ferns are probably 20-30 feet tall and it's odd to see these more tropical plants interspersed with stands of California redwoods! Our supposedly 2 hour hike turned into over 3 hrs since we made a few unintentional detours. Back to town for a few more groceries and I almost ran into a car when I failed to look right when entering a traffic circle. Whew! But I am turning on the windshield wipers less and less when I am trying to signal turns so that's promising. Quiet evening at the condo watching a movie. Not much on TV here except rugby and some interesting commercials. This unit has not one single lamp suitable for reading--an oversight I will point out the management ;-)

Hamilton: Day 3

Bright and early we got up and packed...it seems that somehow our clothing expanded and it was harder to get everything in the two little suitcases?! Had breakfast in our room, checked out, stored the bags and headed up the hill to the car hire office. OK, here's my secret admission, even though I have driven for extended periods (3 months 30 years ago, and two weeks about 10 years ago) I was still terrified about driving on the other side of the road. Fortunately, it's an automatic--not a luxury I had in the past--and the brake and gas are relatively in the same place, but the signal indicator is on the right and I'll tell you that I must have turned on the windshield wipers about 2 dozen times that first day when I was trying to signal a turn. Fortunately we made it out of Auckland without incident and hit the highway south towards Rotorua. NZ is hilly and green even at the end of summer. They have been blessed with a prolonged dry period unusual for this time of year; we've had only a sprinkle. Hamilton, the largest inland town in NZ according to Frommer's, was on our way and a description of their gardens tempted me. We could find no directions in our guide book so drove through Hamilton itself--very uninspiring--and then saw signage as we exited to Hamilton Gardens right on the major highway. Had a little lunch in the cafe and then wandered for a couple of hours through a really amazing collection of themed gardens.  Hit the road again about 2 pm and finally arrived in Rotorua. The directions to WorldMark directed around the town, but we drove through instead, encountering lots of traffic and road construction, but also a visitors' centre. Got directions to the resort and the Pak 'n Save where we bought some groceries--wow is food expensive here, rather like Hawaii in that regard. I'm sure we'll get another shocker when we fill the tank since petrol is over $8 NZ per gallon.  Checked in, unpacked and then went to the cafe on site for a light dinner as we were both pretty beat.  Pics below include one of me at Hal's insistence---one of the few you will see since I take most of the pictures ;-)