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Published: November 18th 2009
The Italian Garden
At Hamilton GardensWe set off on our road trip from Auckland to Hamilton and hit our first bit of traffic. We were probably stuck in slow moving traffic for about 15 mins -awful!! Stopped in a service station to get some petrol and send some postcards - which ones of you will be the lucky ones. We got to Hamilton City Holiday Park at about 1ish and set up our tent. The camp is pretty empty but at least the weather was good. Got back in the ‘bullet’ and drove to the Hamilton Gardens. They have been really well done and had different types of gardens from around the world. The English country garden bought back memories of home and also a certain song!! Had a walk round the different garden for about an hour or so, the American garden was rubbish!! Took a longer walk over to see Rogers Roses - very nicely done as well Mr Russ, we don’t know when you get the time to come over here. They had a Rose Festival going on at the moment and had a local school band playing. Got talking to the organiser and he gave us a program for the
Rogers Rose Garden
at the Hamilton Gardens Japanese themed show on sat which we will probably come to if the weather is nice. For some reason everyone wants to come and talk to us over here or at least say hello. We don’t know whether they are just being friendly or it is our beauty that attracts them. Anyway, the heat was getting to us as we are now used to the cold again so we stopped for a drink and an ice cream before getting back in the car. Next stop was Zo’s choice and she wanted to go to ‘Candyland.’ It was about 20k or so out of town. When we got there we were told that tours are only at weekend and holidays as they are meant for children. This didn’t get us down as we stocked up on classic sweets for the journeys. On the way back we got a bit tired due to the fact that the sugar rush had worn off. Set our selves up for the night, put on some warm clothes and walked into central Hamilton for dinner and drinks. Hamilton, or Kirikiriroa as the Maoris call it, is NZ largest inland city and joint 3rd largest in the
whole of NZ with Wellington. It is situated on the Waikato river, the longest in NZ. It is a nice small city with more bars then people. First point of call for us was The Fox and Hounds - went in and ordered our drink, Zo is back on the strong stuff which is good, only to be ID’d. Not a problem as we both had UK driving license. ‘Sorry, but we cannot accept this. Only NZ driving license and passport.’ At this point I was going to remind the young lass that we still owned them and were standing in an English themed pub - but thankfully she said she could serve us, but just this time!! Only stayed for one because the saga louts were in and felt a bit young! Then walked down the road to The Londoner - another English themed put except this time the beer was good, they had pool and most of all the staff were nice. Decided we were going to have dinner there because they had pie and bangers and mash and they were good! Had a few more drinks and the old bar man came to talk to us about
our trip and gave us some advice for about and hour which was really helpful. Turned out he lived in London in ‘87. Moved down the road to an Irish pub, where they had a blues open mic night. Some were good and some were really bad. Back to The Londoner for one for the road and a cab back which the woman driver only charged us half fare. Very nice of her! Off to bed and the rain opened up in the night!!
Thought we’d have a lie in today but very hard to do as the sun rises at about 6am and the tent gets light and turns into a hot box. Oh well - up at 8am and into the communal shower block. Into the ‘bullet’ and a 45min drive out to the Waitomo Caves. Waitomo means ‘water entering a hole in the ground’ and that is pretty much what a cave is. Our guide Richmond, but we could call him Rich, took us down to the first cave. He was quite informative but had an annoying way of saying ‘folk’ after every couple of words. Anyway, the limestone caves were pretty impressive and especially the
Maori Show
At the Thermal Village. Demonstrating a traditional stick game. cathedral. Due to the fact it is limestone it means that there is no echo and it has perfect acoustics. They have a few concerts in there, like Glen Campbell - wow!! Don’t know why Glen Campbell does one because his fans are so old they wouldn’t be able to get down the stairs!! They also do the carol concert there every year. We saw some Stalactites (tights come down), stalagmites and columns. From there we walked further down the cave until we got to a boat. We all piled into this boat and Rich took us round in the dark to see the glowworms. Wow!! It was like Christmas lights all over the cave or maybe star constellations. Anyhow, it was a sight. Unfortunately you are not allowed to take any photos but I’m guessing is there were lots of flashes going on it would ruin it. Glowworms are pretty useless creatures - they start as an egg in the ceiling, turn into a larva, where they glow and catch food, then to a pupa (cocoon) and turn into an adult fly. Sounds good but the adults don’t have mouths, so they cant eat and die of starvation in
less than 5 days. Their sole purpose is to reproduce and keep the species going - and entertain tourists, but I don’t think that was in God’s original thinking!! We walked back to the car and drove back to Hamilton City Centre for a look around. A nice city centre and stopped off to have a drink before going back to the tent - for some more!! Walked into town for some evening drinks and found a nice bar called Furnance which was nice and warm. Headed back for a bad night sleep because there was a lot of activity going on. Police cars and helicopters flying around.
Rotorua We got up and the weather was a bit crappy so we decided to give the rose festival a miss and get on the road to Rotorua. This is the heart of thermal activity in NZ and you can smell Rotorua before you can see it. The sulphur smell is a mix between eggs and farts. We travelled down highway 5 which is also know as the Thermal Explorer Highway, hence the title. We managed to find the holiday park we were looking for after some guessing and
map reading only to find out it was full. From there we managed to find one closer to town called the Thermal Springs Holiday Park. The draw to the previous one was that it didn’t smell, no such luck here. We are bang in the middle of the activity and it smells good!! We set up our tent on a huge site and went into town to the information block. There is so much to do in Rotorua you have to pick and choose. We booked up our trip to the only Live Volcano around, was quite expensive but hopefully worth it. We drove out to Whakarewarewa, the living thermal village or the full name of Tewhakarewarewatangaoteopetauaawahiao. No joke!! It was really interesting because it shows just a normal Maori town living in harmony with the boiling pools. From the top you can see a geyser and there are bubbling pools everywhere. As part of the admission we got to see a cultural show. It was a show of song performed by Maoris from the village and demonstrating their tools, games and weapons. They also did a form of the Haka, war dance, which was good and would be bloody
frightening when they used to do it in battle, because it would have been performed by over 200 warriors!! We also saw the cemetery where they have above ground tombs because the below ground is too hot to bury people. The geothermic spas and springs originate from left over magma, from previous eruptions, heating up the underground springs and therefore causing hot water and steam. A lot of the power in the region comes from thermal power stations and it is amazing to see the ground steaming. We took a walk around the rest of the village and got back in the car and went to play some min golf. It was a nice day and we managed to get in 18 holes of mini golf, very badly though. We wont put up the scorecard, but it was good fun. Back to camp and headed out for dinner, to Lone Star, and ordered the Fajitas for 2. Could have easily been for 4 as we didn’t finish them. Went to bed stuffed before our next day adventure!!
Up nice an early for our trip to see the geyser. We set off at 9am for the 25km drive to Wai-O-Tapu
Thermal Wonderland. Got our tickets and drove out to the Lady Knox Geyser. We got there early for the 10.15 eruption and having been there before, knew what to expect. By the time 10.15am arrived the place was heaving - 500 plus!! Everybody had their cameras ready, aimed at the geyser waiting for the big eruption. What they didn’t realise is that it isn’t a natural occurring geyser, it has to be fed. The guide turned up and gave us some information. It was first found 100 or so years ago by prisoners who were putting in the trees for the forest. The biggest man made forest in the southern hemisphere I might add. They had no hot water at their prison, so would bring their washing down to this small spring they had found. When the sops mixed with the underground water supply, woosh and up it went. What they do today is a variation, but they don’t use soap - some chemical they have come up with. It is still pretty impressive but a bit of a sham compared with Yellow Stone and Iceland. From there we took the small drive back to the Thermal Wonderland, with the
other 500+ people. We decided to look around the shop so we all didn’t enter at the same time and it worked. The wonderland is an array of hot and cold pools, craters and mud pools. It is just amazing. The colours are vibrant and a mass of them. The pools vary in colour depending on which mineral it is. The most impressive being the champagne pool - a mix of golds, reds, oranges and yellows. The full walk is about 3km and took us and hour or so. The finale is the Devils Bath which was sublime!! It was a bright green lake and unfortunately our camera does not do it justice. You have to come and see it for yourself. We got back in the car and drove about 50km to just outside Taupo, to the Huka Falls. It was powerful, 250,000 litres of the Wailato Rivers blue waters rush through a chasm and leap over a ledge to the basin 11m below every second. The same as and Olympic swimming pool every 6 seconds! We have never seen water so blue and move so fast. It is a grade 5 plus rapid and amazing. There are about
5 rivers that flow into Lake Taupo but this is the only one that flows out and the chasm is about 10m wide. This was where we decided to do the best thing so far, The Hukafalls Jet. It is a small jet boat that does 80kmph, just missing trees and rock and doing 360 spins. Wow!! We loved every second of it. It was only half an hour but our guide Nigel, great name, was so funny and took us right up to the waterfall. The spins were awesome and we laughed and smiled the whole way. Well worth it. We got back on the Thermal Explorer Highway and back to camp to catch up on our blog, journal etc. Doing the blog everyday makes it a lot easier but a lot longer!! The rain kept pouring so we moved our tent from one side of the camp over nearer the main block of amenities. We sat around and played cards before going into town for dinner. Went to the pig and whistle which was very big and uncosy, if that is even a word. Came back to the site, got some alcohol from the cool bag, which we
are keeping stocked up with ice everyday and played some more cards in the dining block. Went to bed early ready for our big trip to the Volcano tomorrow!!
Woke up at 7am to the most beautiful day, blue skies all round, ready for our departure to the volcano. The weather out here is crazy, it seems that one day it is sunny and the next raining! Like being back at home! We were waiting for the tour company to let us know if it was still on because they hadn’t made a decision. I went off to have a shower only to return to the bad news. The sea was too rough and they weren’t going out today. To say I was disappointed was an understatement. We had been put on standby for tomorrow because it is fully booked. So not to waste a day we decided that we were going to go to Taupo.
Taupo Taupo is a town situated on the huge Lake Taupo. The lake was originally a volcano crater that had a major eruption in the late 19 century, and subsequently left a lake. It is massive. We drove the 70 odd
Hukka Falls
Taken from the jet km to Taupo and stopped off in the information block. We didn’t want to spend a huge amount of money so first we set off to see the mountains. This was a further 80km south and we got to see a bit of Mt Ruapehu, the most volatile of the 3 volcanoes, and most of Mt Tangaria and Mt Ngauruhoe. The last eruption of Mt Ruapehu was in 2007 and it has caused a fair bit of destruction over the years, and ruined a lot of skiing holidays. The most destruction was when it killed over 100 people in 1930 something!! We are going to try and drive that way to Napier to see the big boy but we’ll have to wait and see. From there we drove back to central Taupo for a walk around and a hearty MacDonald’s lunch!! Got a phone call to say we are on the boat tomorrow to the volcano, weather permitting!! We then drove back north to see the ‘Craters of the Moon.’ It is a thermal park of baron landscape with steam and craters everywhere. Very eerie and you can see why they do so much filming here, it is also very
The Dam
Before... unstable, like much of Taupo. After the 45min walk we then had to bomb it up to see the Aratiatia rapids. Everyday at 11, 2 and 4 they open up the dam of the PowerStation and let the water through. It goes from 12 inches to 15 metres in no time at all. It was amazing and shows you how much destruction water could do. They used it for the filming of the flooding scene in Lord of the Rings. As we haven’t seen it, that bit of useless information means nothing to us. It was interesting to think that without the dam it would be that rough and high all the time. We had just made it in time for the 2pm opening and best of all it is free!! We then drove to the Volcanic Activity Centre, because Zo knows how much I love Volcanoes. It was quite interesting , but set up mainly for school children. It is all about the Taupo Volcanic Zone, but there was not enough lava for our liking!! We headed back to camp at Rotorua and went to have a dip in the thermal hot pools on camp, very warm and relaxing
The Dam
....After after a long day. Went out for some dinner in a nice Irish Pub and had some hearty grub. Realised that if you eat pub food it works out a lot cheaper. Got a call to say that tomorrow was on so went back to camp and off to bed.
White Island Up at 6.50am ready for our adventure. Drove the 80km drive to Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty. Met up with the rest of the group and got on Pee Jay 5 vessel to take us out to the island. The crossing is about 1 and a half hours and it was really rough. Most people moved inside, but Zo and I stayed it out for the whole journey. As we arrived at White Island we couldn’t believe what we could see. It was amazing. It looked like another world. Big rocks and mountains smoking, all different colour rocks, the sea was a bright green from the sulphur and it was just incredible. We got dished out our safety equipment of a hard hat, which fitted!!!, and a gas mask. From the large boat we moved to a small dingy to get to the Island. White
Island is a privately owned island and is NZ most active volcano. It is about 50km north of Wakatane. It is the start of the volcanic zone and is a large submarine volcano, dating back about 150,000 to 200,000 years old. The geology though is a lot older. It only reaches 321 metres above sea level but it full height from the sea floor is more than double that. We landed and climbed our way over some rocks to the beach, to wait for our guide. Not any old beach, but a black sand volcanic beach. As we stood there it hit us that we were on a volcano. There was steam coming from everywhere and we could have been on another planet! We were told where we could stand and where we couldn’t and what we could take, photos and what we could't take, rocks then set off on our tour. I didn't hear the second piece of information so wondered why Zo kept telling me to be quite when I told her I had put a couple of rocks in my pocket. We were able to get up so close to all the craters and vents, where the
steam was coming out. Our guides Allen and Sara were telling us about how it changes so much and how holes open up in the space of weeks. All the activity at the moment there is geothermal but they did have a full scale eruption in 2000, but it only lasted 80 seconds. The volcanoes in NZ are not powerful enough to throw out lava but can still do a fair bit of damage with ash, rocks and mud slides. We then preceded to walk to the main crater where we saw a giant sulphur lake. The colour was a bright green and it was phenomenal!! We carried on touring the island for about 1 and a half hours and it was not long enough. We were getting so close to boiling mud and huge craters, it was brilliant. They used to mine on the Island for sulphur but many of the companies went bankrupt because the quality wasn’t good enough. The worst disaster was 1914, when the western rim of the crater collapsed, causing a land slide and killing all 10 miners who were working there. The cat survived!! There is still evidence of where people used to mine
Geologist Tom
This is what he would have looked like if he had finnished! But maybe plus a hammer and a rock box. but now it has just been left to mother nature. If you want to see anymore information on it go to www.whiteisland.co.nz. From there we got back on our little boat, to the big boat and had some lunch. Then the journey back to main land, where Zo and I decided to stay inside this time. Back in Wakatane we drove back to Rotorua where we were shattered. Too much excitement and sulphur for one day. Relaxed around our tent before heading out for dinner. Had a great curry, which was cheap and headed back to do the blog. The thermal explorer highway has been awesome. We have learnt so much and seen so much and can now say we have been to a live volcano. Level 1 risk but would be 2 or 3 if on mainland! We would have like to have seen some lava but maybe we’ll got o Hawaii some day. Next stop wine country - no more smell of rotten eggs just raspberry with a hint of oak.
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Gareth
non-member comment
NZ
Can't believe you went back to sulphur thermal hell hole!!!! I remember walking round there with a stinking hangover and feeling very close to death. Was it better without the hangover? Very smelly!!!