Sunday 9th October
Despite struggling initially we did eventually fall off and get a decent nights sleep. We wanted to visit somewhere before leaving town though, so we were up pretty early anyway. The clock had only just struck 8 and we were out of there. We drove up the coast for around 10 minutes and parked up in a car park at the start of the walk. The walk was out to a place called Cathedral Cove and the sign told us it would take about 45 minutes each way. Despite the early hour, there was still a few people clogging the car park and just starting the walk. The track turned out to be clear and easy so we made it to Cathedral Cove in about 20 minutes in the end. The beach was fairly quiet but what made the walk worth it was the huge arch that stood to the left of the beach. As it was low tide we could walk through the archway to a separate beach that gets cut off at high tide. We made a quick foray on to the second beach but we could see the tide coming in incredibly quickly, so we didn't linger there too long. We aren't ones to hover anyway, so once we were satisfied we'd seen enough, we followed the track back to the car. We had a fairly long drive ahead of us, down the windy Coromandel roads to Rotorua. Our phones told us the journey would take us 3 hours and by the time we arrived, they were spot on. We plumped for the usual campsite company and risked a tent site. It had poured with rain on our drive down and they had clearly received their fair share in Rotorua as the ground was rather waterlogged. We found the high ground on our pitch and put the tent up anyway. We had a quick lunch before heading out to have our first look around Rotorua. The town is most famous for having high geothermal activity, which contributes numerous spas, mud baths and sulphuric pits of death to the town and surrounding area. We had had a brief whiff of the sulphur smell up on Hot Water Beach the day before but we hadn't encountered it as of yet since arriving in Rotorua. Our campsite was pretty central, so it only took us around 10 minutes to walk to the centre of town, we had a nose through the info centre to see if there was anything we wanted to do and picked up a few pamphlets just incase. After that we set of to explore the Government Gardens. The gardens were almost a park located right next to Lake Rotorua. This seemed the easiest place to access the sulphuric death pits I mentioned earlier. We could see them steaming from across the well manicured lawns and it didn't take us long to get a nose full of that eggy smell. There were a number of funny looking trees dotted around that had no foliage in them whatsoever and a little sign informed us that they were Plane Trees, which seemed very apt. From there we found the bubbling pit, which used to be much bigger but another plaque told us it had been filled in years ago. There was another pit further around the gardens, located between the public baths and the museum, the building of which was originally the first baths in Rotorua. There were flowering tulips packed in to every flower bed and when we sat down for a few minutes, it was rather amusing to watch the Asian tourists takes photos of them as if they've never seen a tulip (or a flower for that matter) before. After our amusement, we took in a few more trees and statues that were dotted around the gardens before deciding if was time for a supermarket visit. We had a fair few days in Rotorua, so we wanted to leave things to do for ourselves and not rush in all guns blazing. It had just started to spit with rain when we departed so we rushed to the closest shop we could find, picked up our food and rushed back to the campsite. As we were around for a few days, we picked up a slab of mince and cooked up a big chilli that would last us the whole time we were in town. We'd had some respite from the sandflies the previous few days but seeing as there was an insect zapper in the kitchen and fresh bites on our legs, we had definitely entered their territory once more.
Monday 10th October
Somehow the clouds produced yet more rain to make it a bit of a damp night in the tent. When we got up though it had all calmed down a little bit. We were in no rush to get out so let the masses venture forth in their camper vans before heading out ourselves. Our campsite was conveniently located adjacent to the Kuirau Park, which was chocked full of various bubbling mud pools and steam vents. On our way in to town, we decided to stop by. Instead of taking the sensible, pavement route, we thought it would be a good idea to cut through the grassy park. By the time we made it to the first steaming pit, our feet were soaking having walked through puddles lurking in the long grass. The only consolation I suppose was that they weren't boiling pools of mud! We wandered round the various pools, wrinkling our noses at the very pungent eggy smell that the gases were producing. When we came across the foot soaking pools, we steered clear due to the somewhat homeless looking people swishing their feet in them, one of whom’s backside was hanging out their short. We left them to it, and started walking in to town. Unfortunately, on the way in, we had a slightly unsavoury experience. A couple of Maori’s, one male and one female were having a heated argument whilst walking up the pavement behind us. Eventually, they overtook us. When the male did, he turned, looked at our faces and told us to go back to our own country. This took us off guard but Charlotte did manage to get in a “how do you know we aren't in our own country?”. The female of the group told him he was stupid for saying that, we just left him to it. Finally, the lady went in to a shop and he sat on a bench, ironically asking a white local if he had a spare cigarette. Anyway, we were heading for the Government Gardens again, where we jogged our memories with a few things we'd forgotten about the previous day and paid a visit to the Rotorua Museum. We aren't usually ones for a museum but for once we thought we'd make an exception. The museum had a huge series of rooms on how the Maori’s came to New Zealand (or Aotearoa as they say), what caused them to do so and about the local area amongst other things. We spent half an hour looking around whilst eavesdropping on a tour before we hunting down a screen that showed a video about the Maori regiment during World War II. They fought all around the Mediterranean in Greece, North Africa and Italy and they garnered a bit of a fierce reputation. As any war story is, it was very sad but the survivors all seemed very proud of playing their part for the war effort. After the video we spent some more time looking round all the artefacts and pieces they had in the museum before hunting down the second video of the day. This one told us about Rotorua and tourism. The building we were in used to be the old bath houses and it told us about the huge 1886 volcanic eruption of Mount Tarawera that destroyed the Pink and White terraces on the shores of Lake Rotomahana. The terraces were silica deposits that contained hot springs (Mum and Dad and anyone else who had been there think Pammukale). Again it was all really interesting and helped us get to know the area a bit better. With the videos out the way we headed down some stairs and explored the belly of the old spa building. It was where the mud baths were as well as all the pipes that kept the water running. Due to low ceilings I donned a hard hat to prevent any damage to my head, Charlotte was short enough to stroll underneath it all. The basement was rather creepy thanks to numerous short videos going off at the same time all along the corridors. The final stop was the viewing platform in the roof, from where we could see the town and the hills behind, as well as Lake Rotorua behind us. We'd been in the museum for almost 4 hours so by the time we were back to the streets of town, we were pretty hungry. Rather than splash out on a tourist trap of a restaurant, we headed back to the campsite and had some rolls and fruit. On our campsite there was a couple of geothermal hot pools for the use of paying guests. It was already gone 3, so we decided we'd make use of the pools for part of the afternoon. The water was heated to 38° and 40° and we made the mistake of getting in the warmer one first. There was an ominous sign that told us not to dip our heads under the water otherwise we'd run the risk of contracting Amoebic Meningitis, so we did as we were told. We realised our mistake when, despite only being 2° cooler, the 38° pool seemed cold. We didn't spend to long in the pools, as there never is really much to do in them. We scrubbed up and relaxed for the evening, tucking in to a dinner of chilli and fried potatoes.
Tuesday 11th October
At first we weren't really sure what to do with our day. Over breakfast we came up with a plan of wandering in to town, enjoying the lake and picking up a pin badge. It sounded pretty underwhelming to us too. Suddenly, a lightning bold struck and we remembered that we'd seen that there was a redwood forest nearby that we'd picked up a pamphlet for when we'd visited the visitor centre a few days previously. That sounded a lot better, so we prepared ourselves a packed lunch, tidied up the car and set off. The forest was only a 10 minute drive out of town, so we were there in no time. Parking in the car park plonked us right in the middle of the wonderful redwood trees. We picked up a map from the visitor centre and headed off on a walk. All the walks started from the same point, which was through a grove of redwoods via a gravel path and wooden walkway. The redwoods were really something to behold and they had been something I'd always wanted to see in the flesh. As most people do, I know them from their fame in the forests of California and when we found out they had their own forests worth near Rotorua, I really was surprised. It was clear to see how they got their names, their red barked trunks thrusting from the ground and scraping the sky above us. Some were bigger than others, from tiny little saplings to trunks you'd need around 10 people linked together to reach around. Our chosen walk took us out of the redwood forests and into thick rainforest. We'd chosen the 3 and a half hour walk and eventually, it turned off from the shorter treks available. We weren't surprised to find nobody else doing the walk we were. Other tourists are short on time and would have picked the quick walks to make the most of it. We crested a hill and ending up joining up with an old metal road. We managed to pick the pace up along the flat road and made really good time. We left the road, entering a valley that looked like it had seen its fair share of volcanic eruptions. Their were flattened trees on the hillside and what looked the occasional scorch mark on the floor. By the time we'd made time and down the second hill we could tell we were on the home stretch and started to see more signs of life. We passed a few mountain bikers and then found ourselves back amongst the redwoods, completing the circuit by joining up with the path we'd started on. We collapsed on a bench by the visitors centre and ate our lunch. We were starving as it was gone 2pm and we'd been walking for about 3 hours. After leaving the redwoods behind we drive into Rotorua, parking up and picking up a pin badge. As a bit of a treat, we bought ourselves an ice cream each from a recommended shop near the lake. We didn't visit the lake, opting to leave that for our second visit to the town. We returned to the campsite, content that we had done everything we wanted to in the town of Rotorua. We still had a few geothermal places to visit outside of town but would do that on our drive south. With the sun shining during the late afternoon, we cracked open a beer and rented some pétanque balls from reception and played a couple of games on the strip they had at the campsite. It was quite enjoyable, even if the other campers were walking past giving us funny looks. When Charlotte won the first game and I won the second we thought we'd call it an honourable draw. We spent the rest of the evening browsing some flights for after New Zealand and tucked in to our remaining chilli for dinner.
James and Charlotte
Are they kidney beans in your chilli??!!
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