27 04 2010

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27 04 2010

Woke up at Lake Topao pronounced Toepaw and it was a bit damp. Rained overnight. We had a farewell breakfast with Dennis and Maria and waved goodbye to them after a group photo shot. Then we drove to some thermal springs at Hidden Valley called Orakei Korak cave and Thermal Park. You had to catch the on demand ferry over to the thermal springs and were left on your own to wander around. It was pretty amazing to realise we were surrounded by volcanic activity on our way to a town which is built in the crater of another volcano. The holes were filled with boiling water and the geysers were spewing out steam. It was noticeable that the trees around were tropical as a result of the local heat. Cost $34.00 each to get in and took about 1.5 hours to walk.

After this we set off to Roturua, this is a volcanic city with the smell of sulphur everywhere. The disappointing thing at the camp site was the rip off prices for internet access at $7.00 for 1 hour, extortionate!

We went for a walk down town and ended up in the museum. This was built in the early 1900s by a bloke who was imported in from Bath and was originally called the Bath house which was built to attract tourists and was built using the locally hot springs to heat the baths. Lovely building to look at and walk round with another couple of hot springs nearby.

We learned about the Maori culture and I learned they had a Maori battalion in World War 2 which distinguished itself fighting in Libya and Italy.

Today was the first time since we left that we had to wear our wet weather gear as it rained on and off all day. We did hear on the news that Queenstown where we were 10 days ago had a lot of flooded roads which had been closed as a result. Glad we were in the north.

After this we headed back to the camp site and cooked dinner. Felt like we had walked miles today. I had not mentioned the police P word for ages, but the couple we bumped into in the kitchen were both police Officers from Derby who were on a career break. I was allowed a little leeway and we had a good old chat.

Back to Bertie bus and slept in late but woke to a sunny morning.

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