Rotorua - This Town Stinks

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Rotorua - This Town Stinks

Rotorua is the kind of place that on approach you wonder if the guy next to you just dropped a bomb. It stinks. No it's nothing the residents have just done either, but they did build a town in an area of very high thermal activity. I’m sure they have a good reason for building on a geothermal area, with stream vents popping up everywhere releasing the rotten egg smell???

Sticking with the bad smell theme we went to Wai-O-Tapu, New Zealand's most colourful and diverse geothermal park. Interesting scenery, you'd think you were on Mars. Sulphur covered craters, violently bubbling hot mud pools, geyser’s which erupt several metres high and a steaming lake supposedly meant to resemble hell on earth but I’m guessing these people have never been in a Indian bus station toilet. Similar smell though.

The Geothermal complex was also home to a pair of Kiwi’s. After seeing live Kiwi’s for the first time it easy to see why they‘re on the verge of extinction. These nocturnal birds don’t just look silly with their oversized beaks, they have terrible eye sight, can't fly, can't run, can’t swim and they don’t even like to breed.

The next day began with a slow start with everyone hung over and happily sleeping in. Probably all saving energy to be crowned Luge Champion 2007 with us all heading up the gondola to the mountain overlooking Rotorua, to cart down 5km of racing track, three times.

The luge carts were carts seeming about as stable as a shopping trolley but managing to go at near super sonic speeds or making it feel that way when your ass is about 1cm off the ground. Getting them on two wheels is plenty of fun though and even more impressive when you take into consideration that they only have three.

I won the first race but Jamie our driver managed to walk away triumphant winning the next two although my excuse, and I'm sticking to it, is that it's all to do with who is the heaviest getting a speed advantage downhill and he had a good four stone on me.

That following evening we booked a Maori night with Tamaki Tours were we had a buffet dinner the lamb in particular was ‘sweet as’. Then we were shown some of the Maori traditions including how our food had been cooked. They used what looked like a hole in the floor but was in fact a Maori oven called a Pukapukawhatamatahakakasomethingorother and had been used to cook our sweet potatoes. Although touristic the few dances and songs were well performed including the Hakka, appearing much different to that on TV probably due to the lack of a rugby ball.

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