Blogs from Rotorua, North Island, New Zealand, Oceania

The two German girls in my room were super noisy this morning, chatting in the room, with complete disregard at 7.30am. After an hour of this I was rather fed up, so I gave in trying to sleep and got up. As my bus wasn’t until 4pm this afternoon, I checked out, put all my luggage in storage, and much to my surprise had a highly amusing day. I went for an amazing late breakfast at a place called Bodyfuel – salmon and poached eggs with spinach….yum! Dave and I wondered round town, and noticed there was a home and garden show on. It was a $5 ticket event but as we were walking away a lady offered us two free tickets, so we grateful accepted. This show had such an array of items on sale, ... read more

Sunday, 21st April - Day Eighteen: in Rotorua Seeing 18 sheep on a stage behaving so well is an amusing experience and touching them afterwards is a strange sensory experience, especially as their wool is either so thick, so tangly or so oily with the lanolin. But, watching the sheep dogs run over their backs and lying down on them was even more strange. This was at the Agrodome after an other early morning start. There was plenty more to see but for us, quickly onto Rainbow Springs for a walk to see the flora and fauna of Rotorua, including more kiwis, birds and trees. During a short bus tour of the town our bus driver tells us that tourism is the third largest income earner in NZ and that about 93% of tourists come to ... read more

Rotorua Rotorua is the cultural and geothermal hub of the north island and you notice it immediately on entering in the form of the distinct smell of rotten egg from the sulphur released from the steaming vents. This was our first taste of the geothermal side of New Zealand. Listed in the top attractions was a walk or mountain bike around the Redwood forest just outside of town. The stillness and silence of the forest was unbelievable, broken only by the 25 or so Chinese tourists with their cameras who must have decided to have a picture next to every tree in the forest, as they had only moved 25m down the path in the time it took us to complete a 2 hour loop. Tom described it as being like the Forbidden forest from Harry ... read more

On Saturday, we got up early and got the bus from Whitianga to Rotorua, via Thames, with a cheeky stop by a giant L&P Bottle - L&P is a NZ drink that tastes a lot like lemonade, but seems to be pretty dear to Kiwi hearts...so we tried a small one to be polite! As warned by the guide book (and by Christine), Rotorua itself smells of eggs due to all the sulphur coming from the many bubbling pools of water and mud, and strange coloured lakes giving off steam. It felt a little like being on a pre-hisoric movie set, as it was all so unusual...and the smell takes a bit of getting used to! For our first night we signed up to a Mauri evening where we learned a little about their culture and ... read more

Kia ora - no not a request for an orange drink but hello in the Maori language. Looked out of the porthole and saw rain. Typical as we have chosen to take a 9.5 hour tour from the port of Tauranga to Rotorua. Good news - we looked out our cabin door and the exit sign has been replaced! We were on the bus at 8.45 am and off we went. I slept most of the way. Our first stop was Rainbow Springs. This is a nature reserve. There are four species of trout in NZ of which two were imported from tbe UK and one from the USA. The fourth species came from interbreeding. It is illegal for trout to be sold in restaurants. They can only be hunted. They are not captive in the ... read more

Arrived at Rotorua after a journey through the actively volcanic "thermal region" of the North Island. It is peculiar to see steam rising from small craters by the side of the road with larger craters of boiling water and mud causing significant hazard zones if you are not careful to stick to the path. And the smell of sulfur, which hangs on the breeze, pervades the air even in the hotel at times. We visited one such thermal tourist attraction at Wai-O-Tapu on our way to Rotorua. The photos here do not do the place justice. Many of the boiling craters of steam vents, mud pools and hot springs are the result of underground collapse of the ground and bear names like the Devil's Bath, Devil's Bath and Inferno Crater. The whole Volcanic Plateau region bears ... read more

Rotorua is a lovely town and the restaurants and local wines and beers are first class. In the resturant tonight we conformed to one local custom which is to try a small sample of the locally brewed beers (one third of a litre of each, mind you!) just to have a taste of a selection. We will have no trouble sleeping tonight!... read more