Road Trip to Rotorua

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For my first holiday weekend as a resident of New Zealand I chose to head north from Wellington (really the only way to go driving without getting on the ferry) up to Rotorua. Rotorua is a popular place due to it's high geothermal activity. The area is very similar to what you find in Yellowstone National Park in the US, just not vast. On the way you also pass some national parks and active volcanoes, as well as numerous small towns along State Highway 1.

It's Labor Day weekend, which is October 28 in New Zealand, giving me my second Labor Day weekend of the year. I spent my first Labor Day weekend relaxing at the pools in Las Vegas. This was to be a bit different. I leave work a bit early and Nimarta picks me up at my apartment just before 4:00. We're hoping to beat most of the traffic out of the city and we hit the highway right away. Things are looking good for the first couple of miles as we race along the motorway through Porirua. We have an idea of where we're going to stay tonight, but don't have anything booked. Getting all the way to Rotorua is a bit of a stretch, so we figure we'll camp somewhere along the way. As we're driving we start thinking we might be able to get pretty far tonight, since we left early enough. But then that idea is shattered by the endless brake lights ahead of us.

Traffic in New Zealand is not like traffic in the United States. For a country of only 4 million people you'd think traffic wouldn't be a problem. But it's all relative. If you get stuck in traffic in the US you can look up on a map another way to go (and thanks to Google Traffic you can choose a way to go where the traffic is not as bad these days). But you can't do that in New Zealand. There is literally only one road that goes where you want to go, especially going north from Wellington. Our options were sit in traffic on Highway 1 or turn around and go home. And I wasn't about to turn around and go home. So we sit in the traffic. It's basically DC-in-rush-hour bad. Over the next 90 minutes we hardly go anywhere, stopping for a snack at Wendy's because this is the first Wendy's I've seen in NZ and I'm excited for Wendy's chili. Lo and behold, New Zealand Wendy's do not do chili. I complain to Nimarta and she asks me what chili is. Apparently NZ just doesn't do chili! I will miss my Wendy's chili. I settle for a burger and we head back into the traffic.

The traffic finally clears up as 1 and 57 split. We stay on 1 North to Rotorua and the drive becomes more bearable. I'm driving now. I try to do more of the driving on our road trips to make up for her having to drive my car-less ass around all the time in the city. I also like driving on new roads in new places. I'm comfortable driving on the left side of the road, having driven nearly 1000 miles across the UK earlier in the year. You get used to it pretty quickly when you're on the road.

It's already past 8:00 when we roll into Mangaweka, a tiny town that has a decent looking campsite I looked up online. We find the campsite, which is outside of town and drive up to the entrance. It looks pretty deserted. There is one light at the entrance but it appears no one is staying there. This sort of sketches me out and we decide to head up the road another 30 kms to a Holiday Park in Taihape (Holiday Parks are a brand of campsite/cabin parks all over the country). We roll into the Holiday Park as darkness encompasses the sky and inquire about the rates. They say a basic cabin is $38 for the night. That sounds good to us. Nimarta asks "what's in the basic cabin?" The guy responds "just a basic cabin. Basic things." After further discussion we infer that there is in fact a bed in the cabin with a heater and that the guy has no idea what is in a basic cabin.

The cabin has a bed, a table with two chairs, and a heater. The bathroom is shared like at a campsite. Good enough. We bring some stuff in and then head into town to get some dinner. But it's just after 9:00 and everything in town is closed except KFC, Subway, a sketchy looking Chinese place, and the liquor store. Nimarta insists that Subway in NZ is better than Subway in the US. I tell her she's crazy but we decide to go to Subway anyways. We've got some wine back at the cabin but the white wine is not cold so we head over to the liquor store and buy a cheap bottle of chilled white wine. Back at the cabin, my sandwich is good. Better than in the US? It tastes the same!

We're up around 8 on Saturday morning. The sun is shining and it looks like it's going to be a nice day. Nimarta starts out driving so I can get my first view of the mountains, and sure enough the clear blue sky allows for a perfect view of Mt. Ruapehu and Mt. Ngauruhoe on the left side of the road in Tongariro National Park. Ruapehu is a big skiing destination. It's just after ski season but the top of the mountain is covered in snow. We stop for a few pictures and continue on to Taupo. We'll be back in Tongariro on Monday.

We stop for a late breakfast in Taupo, a small tourist city on the edge of a big lake. It's quite busy on the holiday weekend and we don't stay long. Just outside of Taupo we stop of Huka Falls, a small but incredibly fast and ferocious waterfall on the side of the road. It only drops about 9 meters, but the flow rate is unlike any waterfall I've ever seen before. Don't want to get too close to the immense water pressure coming from this waterfall.

Back on the road, we head up State Highway 5 towards Rotorua. Our main stop of the day, however, is about 20 km south of the town. Waimangu Volcanic Valley (http://www.waimangu.co.nz/) is the newest geothermal site in the world, meaning that it was formed more recently than any others. In fact, it's the only one in the world where the date it was formed is known. Most geothermal sites, such as Yellowstone, were formed long before humans ever discovered them. Waimangu, however, was formed after the 1886 eruption of the nearby Mount Tarawera volcano. The volcano caused numerous hot springs and geysers to form in the area and left the land covered in a grey ash. Over the past 125 years the forest has regrown and now looks like a lush rain forest. The geothermal features remain though.

Waimangu holds the world's largest natural hot spring, Frying Pan Lake. It is too hot to swim in, as it's surface is steaming. The tallest geyser ever witnessed is also in Waimangu. Waimangu Geyser erupted frequently from 1901 to 1904 before a landslide caused a change in the groundwater level and left the geyser dormant. It was known to reach heights of 1500 feet. As a comparison, Old Faithful in Yellowstone erupts to 185 feet. The Waimangu eruption would have been something awesome to witness (http://www.elibrarynz.com/BLOG/BLOG-PCS3/waimangu%!g(MISSING)eyser%!-(MISSING)%!p(MISSING)ostcard.jpg).

We pay the ridiculous entrance fee of $35 each and head down the walking trail to all the sites. It's really quiet today. Not too many people other than us. This allows for good pictures and some isolation on the trails. I find geothermal sites fascinating. The colors and contrast with the surrounding landscape are incredible in my viewpoint. This site is especially cool since it's basically in a rain forest. We do a extra short hike up a steep hill to arrive at Inferno Lake, my favorite spot in the park. All of a sudden it feels like I'm on the beach in Thailand. The water is so blue and cliffs rise from the lake edge. It's gorgeous.

There are a few terraces, which I find really cool, but they're not as big as the ones we'll see later, and we hop on the bus back to the visitors center after about an hour and a half in the park. Back on Highway 5 we are running on empty in the gas tank. The meter goes from 1/4 full to well below E in about 10 kms. I freak out a bit but we make it to a gas station in Rotorua in time. From there we do a little road trip around the Rotorua area to see what we can see for free. We have already decided not to pay for anything else until after dinner tonight, when we'll hit the Polynesian Spa for a nightcap.

We drive down to a buried city that was buried after the volcano eruption of 1886 but don't go inside. We then make a lap around Lake Rotorua and stop at some of the small geothermal mud pools in downtown Rotorua before heading to the hotel. We are staying at the Silver Oaks Geyserland Hotel on the outskirts of the city. The hotel is old and a bit run down but it's got a superb location right on the edge of a big geothermal spot with some colorful terraces. We haven't paid for a geyser view room, but we can walk out to the back on the hotel and see the terraces. It's one of the cheaper hotels in Rotorua and definitely worth it.

For dinner we head down to the pedestrian street downtown that houses all the restaurants. We walk down each side of the street looking at the menus and eventually settle on a restaurant not even worth remembering. They are offering a three course meal for $29. Nimarta orders the chicken special and I order the lamb. "We ran out of chicken," the waitress tells us. It's not even 6:00. How the hell did they run out of chicken already? They let her substitute gnocchi as a vegetarian option for the three course special and we forget about the fact that they don't have chicken. Maybe erase it from the chalkboard outside? I know, what a ludicrous idea....

We order beer and wait for our food. The soup comes about 15 minutes later and is actually really good. So we wait for our meals. And wait. And wait some more. We're almost about to just get up and leave when our food finally comes. We tell the waiter to bring our desert out now so we don't have to wait another half hour. We've been here over an hour already and plan on going to the Polynesian Spa tonight. Nimarta's gnocchi is not very good and my lamb is about 6 bites before it's gone. Pretty disappointing. I go up to pay before the desert comes out so we can get out of there sooner. There's a guy at the register with me and he says to the waiter "let me just pay for the drinks, mate. Kitchen's way too slow, way too slow. And you really shouldn't even charge me for the drinks." I say I agree with him but they make him pay for the drinks anyways. Our desert is good but it doesn't make up for the experience of this place. We were hoping to have a nice dinner but unfortunately picked a bad place. Oh well, time for the spa!

The Polynesian Spa (http://www.polynesianspa.co.nz/) is a collection of natural hot springs they have combined into one big tourist trap. We choose the Adult Pools to avoid the children. It's $25 each but one of the cheaper options. It's about 8:00 on a Saturday night but the place is pretty crowded. And by that I mean it's full of Japanese people. I immediately dub the Polynesian Spa "Little Tokyo." Must be some sort of massive Japanese bus tour. They are everywhere. There a few Kiwis and French, but other than that it's basically all Japanese.

The pools are all different temperatures. We start in the 99 degrees one and eventually work our way up to the 106 degree one. The 107 degree one, the hottest, is too full of Japanese men to be able to squeeze in. 106 is plenty hot for me though, and I can't even sit in it for too long at once. After about an hour at the spa we decide we're plenty tired and it's time to head back to the hotel. The hot water really knocks you out. I'm pretty sleepy.

In the showers I am surrounded by naked Japanese men. I immediately think to about the old South Park episode where the Japanese are trying to take over the American government and distract all the Americans by saying "American penis so big. Japanese penis so small. American penis dinosauric. Japanese penis microscopic." I try not to laugh out loud as I leave the shower. I'll have to go back and watch that episode again. Another South Park classic.

Back at the hotel, we pass out pretty soon. The next day we're up early so we can make it down to Wai-o-Tapu (http://www.waiotapu.co.nz/) for the eruption of the Lady Knox geyser at 10:15 AM. Wai-o-Tapu is about 30 kilometers south of Rotorua so we have to get on the road. Wai-o-Tapu is supposed to be one of the best geothermal sites in the area and it's the last site we're planning on seeing before heading back south.

We make it with plenty of time to spare, buy our tickets (another $35 each...) and head back to the geyser, which is outside of the main area of the park. The geyser erupts every day. But it is "helped" by the staff, which pour a collection of suds into the geyser to ignite the eruption so it goes off at the same time every day. I don't know when it would go off if it wasn't given help. The eruption is not nearly as impressive as Old Faithful or the geysers I saw in Iceland but it gets decently high. I'm sure a natural eruption would be better but I suppose this is the only way to make sure everyone gets to see it.

The geyser erupts for a while and we leave before it's done and head back to the main part of the park to start the guided walk around all the geothermal activity. The first area is full of deep craters, colorful and smelly. There are boiling mud pots and sulfur caves. The main steaming lake is pretty impressive, but it's so steamy it's almost impossible to see! There's a boardwalk that goes right next to it so you can get pretty close. We snap a few pictures and move on. There are some very colorful lakes and caves as we walk along the path. We finally make it to a lake that is very green in color. It's a big lake too. I've never seen a big lake this green before. I'm always amazed by the colors that geothermal activity can produce. Skittles should create a new color called "geothermal."

The walk back takes us on a different route and we get to see some different things. My favorite is another green lake that makes the big green like look like child's play. This lake is tiny, more like a pond, but it is the greenest water I've ever seen. It's lime green, and looks like the acid that Raymier Wolfcastle was stranded in on The Simpsons. I'm sure the water is very acidic and I wouldn't dream of touching it. But it looks awesome. I take more pictures than are justified and we head back to the visitors center where I buy some postcards for some friends back in the US. We make one stop on the way out at a big boiling mud pool and see some mud basically explode. There are some children there who seem to find this the most entertaining thing they've ever seen.

The weather is getting pretty nasty by now. Overcast has taken over the skies. We were originally planning on camping in Tongariro, but the forecast tonight is for below freezing and I'm not prepared to sleep outside in sub-freeing temperatures tonight. After stopping for lunch again in Taupo we make our way to a town literally called National Park. It's right on the edge of Tongariro National Park and is basically just a ski and trekking town consisting of some hostels and lodges and outdoor adventure companies.

We make it to the town just before 5 and the rain has stopped for the time being. We check out a few places and eventually settle on a room at Howard's Lodge. The place is pretty empty but we don't care. We pay the $76 for the room and go take a nap. We're both exhausted from a busy couple of days and the weather has made it so they're nothing really to see today. So a nap sounds perfect.

It's almost 9:00 by the time we wake up. Solid nap. We make some sandwiches with some bread and meat we bought earlier in Taupo and finish some red wine we had. I've also bought a 12 pack of some random Czech beer that was cheap(ish) at the grocery store. We've borrowed a DVD of Dante's Peak from reception. Nimarta has never seen it, and I figure since we're right at the base of an active volcano, why not? The DVD also has a copy of Twister which we watch afterwards. A random white cat has appeared in the lounge and decided he wants to snuggle with us on the couch. We're not sure who's cat it is or where it came from but he jumps up on Nimarta's lap and watches the movies with us. Silly cat.

Monday morning. The weather doesn't look as bad as yesterday so we decide to start the hike we had planned to do. It's part of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing trail, which runs about 20 kilometers to the other side of the park. We have planned to go about 8 kms to Red Crater, the highest point on the trail, and then head back. The sun is actually shining on us when we start the trail. It's a popular trail but there aren't too many cars in the parking lot. It's quite cold out, not too much above freezing, so maybe that's why.

The first few kms are relatively flat as we hike through volcanic terrain similar to what I saw in Iceland. The clouds above Mt. Ngauruhoe have parted and we get a nice view of the volcanic peak. But it doesn't last long as the clouds roll back in. As we start to gain elevation closer to the mountain the weather takes a turn for the worst. The higher we climb the worse it gets, until the point where the wind is blowing sleet directly at my face. And it's coming down pretty hard. The hike has become incredibly uncomfortable and actually quite dangerous, as the trail begins to get really slippery with the falling ice. The only logical decision is to turn back. Some of the hikers ahead of us continue on, probably because they have a car at the other end of the 20 km trail. But for us to continue on would just be dumb. I guess we'll have to try it another time in the summer when the weather will be better. Dejected, we head back down the trail to the car.

The hike was the last event of the trip, so it's time to head back to Wellington. After a few stops for gas and groceries we're back in town, my first holiday weekend in the books. Overall it was a good trip. The highlights were the steaming lakes and boiling mud pots. The down-points were the prices of everything and the weather. But hey, it's New Zealand - it's expensive and it's small size and mountainous terrain make the weather unpredictable no matter where you are. I'd definitely recommend the Rotorua area to anyone visiting Auckland or the north central North Island. And the Tongariro Alpine Trek is a must for any avid hiker. I hope to complete it one day. Till then - catch you next time!

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Photos

Frying Pan Lake
Largest hot spring in the world