Advertisement
Published: February 19th 2015
Edit Blog Post
Left Whitianga and headed down the coast calling in at several places, one called Pauanui which we thought was lovely. It had a nice feel to it, some lovely houses and all set around a large open and calm inlet of sea with mountain views and the ocean crashing on the rocks on the other side. A very quiet lovely residential area if you were thinking of emigrating. On from there and a quick stop at Katikati which was nothing to get excited about, Tauranga which was a nice buzzy town and onto where we were staying Mount Maunganui which apparently is becoming NZ top weekend away destination. We stayed in a B & B and our host was from Scotland but he had been resident in NZ for nearly 50 years and whilst in the UK he was based at Weeton army barracks, small world sometimes!!! Anyway, a nice area, we did some walks around the coast but it was just a one night as we were moving onto Whakatane for two nights as we were booked on the boat to go over to White Island which is an active volcano.
On arrival we booked some accomodation and after
a wander around the town we headed off to NZ top voted for beach! Not being a beach person it has to be golden or white sand, turquoise sea, blue sky, palm trees etc etc to get me on it. But with all that had been said about it, clad in beach attire off we went. What a huge disappointment, the sand was a dark dirty brown colour and apart from it being a very long beach I don't think there was much to it. Baz had a dip, I lay out for 10 and then we were off! Not overly impressed.
The trip to the White Island volcano was really good, we were a bit apprehensive as Baz is not a very good sailor but having popped sea sick pills he was enthused about the trip, the day started off very cloudy and a bit drizzly so we were a bit like oh no as it had been soooo sunny and warm the day before. Anyhow on we went and it was a long 1.5 hours out on the boat to the volcano, on route we were joined by a large pod of common dolphins, they are much
smaller than their cousins the bottle nosed and were a good distraction from the swell on the ocean. They are so fantastic to watch. On arrival we were transported by little boats onto the volcano and it's really quite strange knowing that it is being constantly monitored and has the capacity to erupt at any time. We were of course given a safety drill and issued with hard hats and gas masks, oh and sweets to suck! the sweets were not because we were a very good group they were because with the sulphur and all the steam it can make you want to cough. We were in group of 20 and our guides gave us a tour of the volcano and explained the whats and the whys. I suppose it's a bit surreal really as there are bubbling mud pools, sulphur towers spouting steam and large craters all looking like they could go at any minute. A wonderful experience, we even tasted the sulphur out of one of the towers before it had time to solidify and it tasted like lemon sherbert! I only hope we are still alive tomorrow! On the boat back we encountered some more dolphins,
lots of Gannets that were nesting on the sides of the volcano and some flying fish, which was really cool. They actually fly and stay out of the water for ages, nature is pretty amaze balls!!!
Arrived in Rotorua today and first thing first it is very smelly, it's the sulphur, bit bad eggy!! Walked around the lake today and it was a strange blue milky colour and had quite an eerie feel about it. There was plenty of bird life on the lake but the fact that at one end it has bubbling mud pools and steam rising from the ground makes you think there is something serious going on underneath the ground. It is a large town, more like a little city really and we had an afternoon lunch/dinner at a restaurant that was down eat street! They have blocked off a whole street so it is just pedestrians and it has lots of bars and restaurants. Booked our trips today at the information site and it was manic, apparently three cruise ships are in so everything is being booked up like mad. Anyway tomorrow it's a busy day, up early and off to Wai-O-Tapu to see
the wonders of nature, it's a volcanic area with lots of geothermal activity and in the afternoon it's white water rafting along the Kaituna river and waterfalls.
Early start today so that we can fit it all in, headed out to see the thermals. It's a little strange driving around this area and seeing steam coming up from the ground, the area is literally covered with collapsed craters, cold and boiling pools of mud and water and steam fumaroles. It's an area that has been associated with volcanic activity for 160,000 years and somewhere that you can get away with trumping cos it smells bad anyway!! the smell "rotten eggs" comes from the hydrogen sulphide!! phewwww. Anyway we walked around the area which took just over and 1.5hrs and then made our way to The Lady Knox Geyser for her eruption which happens at 10.15am every day. Now perhaps Baz and I were being really thick but we thought that this was Mother Nature with fantastic timing skills, but no it's a man that comes round and tips some stuff into the top of the geyser and then moves away whilst we and about 200 hundred other people await
the dramatic whooshing of water. It wasn't quite the event we thought it was going to be but nevertheless it was worth seeing and being on the front row we got quite wet, all good fun.
Onto the white water rafting, totally awesome experience. Really cool bunch of guys that took us out, very experienced and great fun. Little apprehensive when we were getting the safety talk about upside down rafts and what to do if we fell out but it was all good. Our rafting experience was on the Kaituna river and we did lots of little waterfalls building up to the big one which was the highest commercially rated waterfall in the world measuring in at 7metres. We had to learn to get down which basically meant tuck your feet under the ridges in the boat, oars at the sides and hold on tight to the ropes. There wasn't time to panic really, it was just this is it and paddle fast and then get down, we made it to the bottom and you go completely under the water before bobbing back up, we lost two overboard but they were ok and we hauled them back in.
Fantastic couple of hours spent and the pictures which we got as a souvenir are funny to say the least.
Off again tomorrow, we are heading down to Napier where we are staying until Monday as there is a lot going on this weekend. There are classic car parades, people dressing up, vintage planes, food festivals, music and loads of other stuff, should be good fun, will keep you posted.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.265s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 10; qc: 45; dbt: 0.1109s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb