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Published: February 7th 2009
We now have our campervan! And a lovely little van it is too - fridge, sink, microwave, fold out bed, ice tray, selection of pots and pans .. couldn't ask for much more. Well shower, loo and gold plated bidet might be nice, but we can do without.
The weather here was a little too British for our tastes (though no snow!). I'm being cruel, it's mostly been sunny really but had some grey bursts and *shockhorror* drizzle. We didn't come away for drizzle, that's for sure, but it's perked up now and we have 30 degree heat. Phewph, that's more like it.
Anyway, we've packed in a lot since zooming around in our shiny vehicle. First stop was Rotorua, a town with loads of Mauri heritage and huge amounts of geothermal shenanigans. The whole place has a sulphurous reek (though I'm quite used to that, having spent so much time in close proximity to Chris). We wandered around areas of bubbling mud and fizzing pools of water,visited a museum and learnt lots about the town's volcanic history and Mauri past, then had just enough time for a quick dip in our campsite's complimentary hot mineral pools before being
bussed off to a Mauri type evening.
It was ace actually - bit of cheesy walking through woods and seeing Mauri warriors lurking - lots of performance and ceremonies, including this tribe's version of the hakka. Then a massive Mauri style feast, or hangi, which was shoiteloads of meat and veg cooked in a steam oven in the ground (along with millions of side dishes that I don't think were quite so authentic, but damn it all tasted good). We walked off our food with another nighttime stroll around the woods, peeping at glowworms. Sweet!
Then we darted to Wai o Tapu Thermal wonderland, which is yet more bubbling pools and water and mud (yes New Zealand has about three fault lines running through it, hence the stupid amount of volcanic type action) in various colours,as well as a spurting geyser.
We really pampered ourselves that afternoon though, with a trip to the Polynesian Spa! We'd never spa'd before, but it was amazing - about eight hot mineral pools to choose from, all outside with the most amazing view out over the lake right next to it. Fernandes - wish you could have been there to enjoy
it too.
We then made plans to attempt to injure or at least scare the poo out of ourselves as much as possible. The other day we had an afternoon of white water rafting, which I LOVED! Never done any activities like that before, so it was a fun introduction. We both jumped off a waterfall too (it was 100 feet high I tells ya) and basically had an amazing time, before being fed hot dogs and lounging in - you guessed it, more hot pools.
We've also booked ourselves onto 'the swing' at Taihape - not quite as daring as a bunjee jump, but basically you freefall for about 50 feet while attached to a harness, then swing across a canyon before being winched back up. I wanted to play, and Chris is coming with me, tandem style! Woop woop!!
We based ourselves at art deco styled Naiper - yesterday was the Harvest Hawkes Bay wine festival, so we got bussed between wineries - we found one serving CIDER, oh yes, so parked ourselves there for the afternoon and drank rather a lot of scrumpy and Herefordshire style coiiiderrrr. Yum. Also coincidentally met entirely Brits-relocated-to NZ
for some reason, who were all great and are loving life out here.
Today we move on from Napier towards Taihape - we've found a windy mountain road to nip us across, so think we'll attempt to get Vincent van across it without too many scrapes. Eek! Adventure time.
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