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Published: March 12th 2014
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Hot Springs
at Wai-O-Tapu Today we are in Tauranga. By comparison to Auckland (which was a clean, friendly city) this is a clean friendly village. All that we saw of Auckland was interesting, but it was basically a big city. Technically Tauranga is also a city (populations about 125K) but it is much smaller. Uh-oh, I’m ahead of myself again.
Our tour today is nine hours, so we had to get up at 5:45 to dress and eat in time for the tour. We again ate in the buffet and then reported to the theater at 7:10 as scheduled. Our tour wasn’t called until 7:30, but we were all set without any issues.
We boarded our bus and headed off for an interesting adventure. The driver drove us through the resort portion of town along the beach and past a volcano (Mt Maunganui) on the tip of a peninsula. If we didn’t have other things planned, this could have been an interesting place to spend the day exploring, but we had another tour scheduled. We had a 90 minute driver out of town and out to the Wai-O-Tapu (meaning Sacred Waters). It is an active geothermal region of hot
David
at the prings springs and bubbling mud pits. Along the way the driver explained about their local agrarian economy. Captain Cook had named this area the Bay of Plenty. One major export from New Zealand is the Kiwi Fruit, which primarily comes from this area. The fruit grows in either Green or Golden and 90% is exported around the world. NZ also has about 10,000 cattle (50% for dairy products and 50% for beef), which is also heavily exported – mostly to China. There are also deer farms where the venison is exported to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. They also export huge amounts to lumber for construction and for paper products – he explained a fairly complex 23-yr plan for planting and harvesting timber. There was much more that our guide explained, but we cannot document everything here.
We arrived at the Hot Springs and had 90 minutes for a self-guided tour of the area. The paths are clearly marked (there are even frequent warnings about NOT straying off the paths (much of the mud and springs are 100 degrees C).. The “course” is designed so you could walk just the first third (returning back at the beginning point,
Janet
at the Springs or walk an additional third before finishing the first portion, or to walk the entire 1.5 mile course. All choices were up to us and they gave fairly good estimates of how long each would take. Janet walked the first course and saw some very interesting locations. David walked with her, but continued for the whole course and saw even more. There are some pictures attached, but a photo of bubbling mud is not too photogenic – the movies are better. We met up at the Visitor’s Center and did a little shoppingin the Gift Shop before boarding the bus again.
Our next stop was to board a stern-wheeler paddle boat(Lakeland Queen) and to cruise the Rotorua Lake. We were a little early getting to the dock, so our driver/guide drove us around this small township and showed us some interesting places here. We boarded the boat about Noon and they served us a good buffet lunch (chicken, fish, vegies, salad, desserts, and a complimentary NZ wine). During lunch there was a demonstration of the famous Maori dance (called the hucka sp?). This is done by the warriors before a battle to scare their opponents (including making
frightening faces). It was fun, and they drafted a couple of people to learn the basic steps and join in – neither of us though. The boat continued the cruise, returning to the dock about an hour later. It was a good meal and a restful time.
Then the bus took us to a place called Rainbow Springs, which has 135 varieties of natice trees, plants, fish and animals. Our guide was actually an American and did not have the local accent – we understood him just fine. We were led through the tour and finished by visiting a display of kiwi birds. Photos were allowed in the exhibit area (stuffed birds) but no photos at all in the live exhibit. But we did see a few real ones, although it was extremely dark as they are nocturnal animals.
On the 90 minute ride back to the ship, Janet’s knee started hurting. She hurt her ankle during the Baltic cruise, so she has special walking boots to avoid repeating that problem, but this time it is her knee. She made it back to the cabin and to dinner, but she went to bed to
Maori Dancer
Making scary face rest instead of going to a show this evening.
At dinner, there were the 4 of us. Janet had a shrimp pastry as appetizer and a cold fruit soup, followed by an enormous Ribeye Steak. David had a mixed fruit appetizer and a bowl of chicken curry soup. He also had the ribeye. For dessert we both had Cherries Jubilee.
David went to the show in the theater and saw a singer to covered songs from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. Mostly they were hit songs that David knew, but every so often he tossed in a famous Australian song that everyone else seemed to know but David hadn’t ever heard.
There seems to be something amiss with the battery to charge the laptop, so this is going to be a quick finish to get today’s blog sent. Hopefully this problem will be easily fixed and we will continue publishing – watch for tomorrow to see.
Also we hope that in the morning Janet’s knee is feeling much better.
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