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Published: June 14th 2006
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Day 16: Napier-Rotorua
At last, a day of really bad weather. Not that we’re complaining - we led a charmed life on the South Island in that respect, and today every major road that we travelled on down there is closed due to extreme conditions, exemplified by snow down to sea level on the east coast. Christchurch is like a winter wonderland, the east-west rail line is down, the airports are mostly closed. We would surely have had an interesting time had we travelled a week later, but it would not have been exactly what we were there for.
The North Island has had its share. Auckland was without power overnight, and there were gales and flooding around the place. All we really suffered was a bit of high wind and driving rain on the road.
In Napier this morning we looked around at the distinctive town architecture. Local tourist information illustrated the devastation of the 1931 earthquake in Napier - about 90% of the city razed and 162 people killed. The whole town, with the exception of a very few damaged buildings, was rebuilt.
On that subject, a postscript to yesterday’s diary. In conversation today I
mentioned to Helen that I thought I had felt a minor earth tremor during the night before, in Wellington, but it may have been a dream. She replied that she had felt the same thing, and we found a paragraph in this morning’s paper that confirmed that the earth had indeed moved, offshore to the tune of 3.5 on the Richter scale, for both of us. A little Whitlam moment, there.
We set out for Rotorua, where we are to spend three nights as a base for visiting several attractions around the region. We made slow progress due to the weather. Passed through Taupo, reputedly an attractive place, but for us it was lost to the rain and the wind.
We arrived in town early enough to wander around public parkland and be impressed by lots of steam bubbling out of the ground. In one place, tiny bubbles surfaced through the muddy path at our feet. There is an ever-present whiff of hydrogen sulphide in the air here, which occasionally rises to an intrusive level. I suppose the locals are immune to it.
There is an extraordinary number of motels in the strip where we are staying
- never seen anything like it. Our unit is very roomy, for which we are grateful - a suite for the price of a room. Room to swing a cat, in fact, which is a tempting prospect. And Sky Sports, for the soccer tonight. We are setting the alarm.
Day 17: Rotorua
We lost a bit of sleep last night, but all in a good cause. What an extraordinary game! Eighty minutes of frustration followed by ten minutes of elation. Looks like the Croatia game might decide the group 2nd place. We have yet to see what the coverage is in the Cook Islands.
Today was still pretty grey, but the sun did appear from time to time. Rotorua is pretty much the major centre of Maori population in the country, and today our major excursion was to the Te Whakarewarewa Maori village, population around 70. The village is centred on a thermal-activity area that enables virtually all cooking and heating to be done using energy from not far below the ground. The residents routinely cook outside, using a box-like oven that is effectively a thermal-heated hangi, piping steam around the food. The village has the expected range of art and craft workshops and presents a traditional concert to the likes of us Pakeha tourists. We saw plenty of geysers, steam and mud and were impressed by a relaxed, natural and unforced hospitality on the part of the residents.
We had a long afternoon snooze to replace lost sleep from last night, then went out to a Turkish café in town. Ate some delicious Turkish food and then engaged in a long, occasionally mutually uncomprehending, but very enjoyable conversation with the proprietor about soccer.
Andrew
Footnote: only three photos, as each one was taking an age to upload. Might try to load the rest next time.
"Next time" will probably be from Rarotonga!
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