Rotarua

Well, Tongariro was tons of fun; a plethora of fun, but it was time to move on.  The next stop for our little band was to Rotarua, a city built on hot springs and tourism. We left for Rotarua after we'd done our final walk in Tongariro, but since Rotarua was only about an hour and a half away we took our time in getting there. We took a few little detours along the way. The first was lunch, of course, in Taupo. Taupo sits on the edge of the lake of the same name: it's the largest lake in New Zealand. It was once the site of the largest volcano in New Zealand. Something like a 2000 years ago it exploded and the lake formed in the crater. The explosion was so big that its effects were noted as far away as China and Rome, crazy eh? Anyway, it was kind of weird to be on the other side of the lake because we could see the volcano we'd climbed up the day before, plus it was about 10 degrees warmer. Funny how changing altitude will do that.

After lunch we stopped at some incredible waterfalls. You could hear them as soon as you stepped out of the car in the carpark. It was just the way that the land had formed, but this particular part of the Waikato River flows faster, with a greater volume of water per meter than any other part. It's not a huge drop (only 11meters) but it's beautiful to see. The water's this spectacular blue turquoise color caused by the increased air in the water reflecting blue light. The waterfalls are so powerful that trout can't swim up the waterfalls to get to their breeding grounds. It was pretty cool.

After we got to Rotarua and checked in to our motel we decided it was time to explore. There was a playground on the map on the edge of the lake that was marked "Volcano Playground" which was a lie that drew us in--no volcanoes there! Since our family is made up of a bunch of big kids, though, we decided to play a little, and the hand jousting began. Brian beat us all. Cheater.

After jousting we went to explore around the lake's edge but soon had to move away. The sulfuric smell was overpowering. I later asked one of my kiwis friends who's from Rotarua how she can live there, she said that she technically lives outside of town, but after a while you can't really smell it. We wandered more closely to our motel, as it was getting dark already, but not before we'd found the city gardens. Most of the flowers were dying out, but there were still a few roses blooming! The extra cool thing about Rotarua being on hot springs is that all of the motel pools are naturally heated, so we that night we just floated around in the pool staring up at the stars. The constellations in the southern hemisphere are different to ours, but I think I spotted one: scoripus, my zodiac sign. Well, and of course the southern cross.

The next day was my last with Brian and Naomi, I was moving on north to go visit one of my flatmates at her home, so we thought we'd get up early to go for a walk. We got up too early I guess because the place we wanted to go for a walk and see some hot springs was actually closed. We kept driving, and eventually got semi-stuck in a massive amount of fog. We were still trying to find a walk, but eventually we gave up and wandered back to Rotarua. In stead of going for a walk we ended up in the local museum/art gallery. It was alright, the coolest pat of the galleries was the exhibit they had up of all these digital artists that work/ed at WETA workshops. There were little bios that listed which movies and departments they'd worked at, and since I'm a nerd, I even recognized some of the names from the LOTR additional features. Most of the drawings were done in digital formats, but a couple were actually watercolor or oil paints. All of the art was of different creatures and strange fantasy worlds: my kind of stuff.

The rest of the museum was about the local history of Rotarua and the volcanic activity there. The building used to be an old bathhouse in the early part of the 20th century, so there were several exhibits dedicated to that. You could go up to the roof and look out over the city as well, which was pretty cool.

After exploring a couple more exhibits it was time to head back for lunch and my departure. It was a once in a life time adventure to wander around a foreign country with my brother and sister-in-law, it led to some great stories and lots of fun. Perhaps one day we can do it again with the whole family (there's a scary thought--not sure if the rest of the world is ready for ALL the family).