NZ Day 6 – Rotorua: Eggy geezers
Couldn’t deal with the coldness of the van so delayed getting up this morning. First on the hot thermal roadshow was Te Puia, a Maori and geyser theme park. Entry was quite steep at $50 but it was the cultural part that was worth it. More smelliness and walking around but didn’t quite compare to the extremeness on White Island. The main geyser was quite interesting but took awhile to really kick off.
The Maori midday ceremony was very special for me the guide asked for someone to act as visiting chief which I volunteered for.
There’ll be a couple of YouTube videos of this coming soon but in essence I had to accept a peace offering and rub a few noses on stage. From my ‘throne’ (ok maybe not throne but best seat in the house) we watched the song and dance show which included Poi, the catching sticks game and a few warrior moves.
The second smelly place was Wait-o-tapu or Geyserland which had loads of multi-coloured pools with some creative names like Champagne Pool, Artist Palette, Rainbow Crater and Devil’s Arsewipe (the last one I made up but there is the Devil’s Bath). It seemed to take ages walking round and after two days of smelling guff air you couldn’t help wanting it to end.
We set off for Wellington to gain some Southern mileage (or Kilometreage) via Lake Taupo. The lake was gigantic being the biggest in NZ and like most of the country very scenic. Here, Kerry took the opportunity to drive the campervan but quite quickly regretted it being a bit of a spongy monster to handle. Our midway point was in the Tongario National Park at the base of the three snow capped mountains, Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu with one of them being Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. We stayed in the village of Whakapapa (remember Wha is pronounced Tha) and it was the coldest yet being a ski resort. We couldn’t be bothered cooking so opted for potato wedges, beer and pool in the local pub. A layer of clothes on top of the duvet plus a layer to wear helped us through the cold night.
The Maori midday ceremony was very special for me the guide asked for someone to act as visiting chief which I volunteered for.
There’ll be a couple of YouTube videos of this coming soon but in essence I had to accept a peace offering and rub a few noses on stage. From my ‘throne’ (ok maybe not throne but best seat in the house) we watched the song and dance show which included Poi, the catching sticks game and a few warrior moves.
The second smelly place was Wait-o-tapu or Geyserland which had loads of multi-coloured pools with some creative names like Champagne Pool, Artist Palette, Rainbow Crater and Devil’s Arsewipe (the last one I made up but there is the Devil’s Bath). It seemed to take ages walking round and after two days of smelling guff air you couldn’t help wanting it to end.
We set off for Wellington to gain some Southern mileage (or Kilometreage) via Lake Taupo. The lake was gigantic being the biggest in NZ and like most of the country very scenic. Here, Kerry took the opportunity to drive the campervan but quite quickly regretted it being a bit of a spongy monster to handle. Our midway point was in the Tongario National Park at the base of the three snow capped mountains, Tongariro, Ngauruhoe and Ruapehu with one of them being Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. We stayed in the village of Whakapapa (remember Wha is pronounced Tha) and it was the coldest yet being a ski resort. We couldn’t be bothered cooking so opted for potato wedges, beer and pool in the local pub. A layer of clothes on top of the duvet plus a layer to wear helped us through the cold night.
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