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| Bath House Building, Rotorua |
From Hamilton we drove on to Rotorua, where we were greeted by the lovely aroma of rotten eggs. This is a geothermal area, so the smell of sulphur wafts everywhere and once you leave the town you are best advised to stick to the marked paths as you never know where a new spout of steam might appear.
Rotorua itself was OK. We tried going to the night market for food one evening, but apparently they have a different view of 'night' here as when we arrived at 8pm it was all over. At least they had a couple of decent places to eat in Eat Street, which just about stayed open long enough for us to eat in the evening rather than what felt like late afternoon!
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| New Zealand |
But we weren't there for that, we were here for the geothermals, and we were most impressed with those. We went to four different sites, all of which were good in their own way, but we especially liked the last two. But I will cover those in the next two posts.
We didn't do a lot in town, as there wasn't much to do. We went to visit the museum, which was in the very impressive Bath House Building, but we weren't really in the mood for it, so got distracted by the café, and never actually got around to looking at the exhibits about the Maori culture. Oops.
We did pop over to Rainbow Springs, a very small wildlife park outside Rotorua that is involved in kiwi conservation and breeding. Most of the kiwi area is off limits, but there are some enclosures out in the park. If you go during the day, then you will only see the kiwis in the nocturnal house, but we went at dusk, so that we could see them outside.
You do have to be a bit patient, they can take a while to emerge. You also have to be very quiet, as kiwis are notoriously shy creatures. When they finally did come out, it was great to see them rooting around for food. The fence is very low - you are trusted to behave - so you can get a lovely close up view of them if and when they come along the edge of the enclosure.
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| New Zealand |
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| Whakatane |
One of our trips out of Rotorua was to the coastal town of Whakatane. On the drive out, there was some beautiful scenery - all rolling hills and the like. You could tell we were close to where they filmed the Lord of the Rings. Not that we actually visited Hobbiton; we were considering it, until we saw the price!
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| Whakatane |
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| Whakatane |
We had read that Whakatane was a place that we might be able to see the Blue Penguins, but that apparently turned out to be rubbish. There was a nice coastal walk, where we did spot a little Morepork owl, nestled in a tree.
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| Whakatane |
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| Morepork owl, Whakatane |
It was nice to see a different type of place, but it really was just a small town, with not that much to merit going there. It had one little treat in store though. We went into a charity shop for a poke around, and found the Jilted John LP called True Love Stories. I have always had an inexplicable liking for the song Jilted John, so as it was only 99 cents, we bought it. Of course I don't have a record player, so I haven't listened to it yet.
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| Te Wairoa |
Our other visit was also sadly something of a disappointment, although to be fair, I suspect we had rather inflated expectations of what would be there.
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| Te Wairoa |
The Buried Village of Te Wairoa, is the site of a small village that was established in 1848 as a model village, only to be destroyed less than forty years later, when Mount Tarawera erupted on 10 June 1886, killing around 153 people.
We had hoped that the village might be a little along the lines of a mini version of Pompeii, a small slice of history preserved by the volcano.
Unfortunately, there is really little more than a few archaeological remnants of the original buildings, and some replica homes to show what the village was like, and how it was left covered in 1.5 to 2 metres of volcanic mud.
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| mural of pink and white terraces |
As well as the obvious disaster for the village and those who died or were
bereaved, there was an
additional loss of a geological feature that was touted as being the eighth wonder of the world.
On the shores of Lake Rotomahana were the famed pink and white terraces that had made the village a destination for tourists wanting to see them and bathe in their waters. Sadly the volcano destroyed them too.
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| Te Wairoa |
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| Te Wairoa |
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| Te Wairoa |
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| Te Wairoa |
Don't be put off from visiting or reading about Rotorua though, the next two posts should have lots of photos that will convince you that it is well worth a visit.
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| Te Wairoa |
It was nice to see a different type of place, but it really was just a small town, with not that much to merit going there. It had one little treat in store though. We went into a charity shop for a poke around, and found the Jilted John LP called True Love Stories. I have always had an inexplicable liking for the song Jilted John, so as it was only 99 cents, we bought it. Of course I don't have a record player, so I haven't listened to it yet.
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