My Weekend in Rotorua
Matt and I were planning to spend the weekend in Rotorua, but since he had to fly home I went on my own. Kerry and I took a break from trying to catch bats on Friday and Saturday nights, so I drove to Rotorua, a popular tourist spot about 40 minutes away from Tokoroa. I checked into a backpackers' hostel (abbreviated to 'backpackers' here instead of 'hostel' for some reason) and spend the rest of the afternoon walking around Rotorua.
The town of Rotorua is next to Lake Rotorua. The area is covered in thermal pools, bubbling mud, and geysers. It's quite the little hot spot! Kuirau Park in the middle of town is pockmarked with signs that they're on a volcano. The park- the city park- even had a minor eruption in 2001 that lasted 15 minutes. This is the most amazing little park I've ever been to. There are steam vents, bubbling mud, thermal pools, and steam drifting through the trees. It felt like some kind of enchanted place from a movie!
Me at a thermal pool. I had tons of fun using our tiny tripod and the timer setting on the camera to take pictures of myself.
While New Zealand has its share of hot springs and such, I hear that Yellowstone has half of the world's geysers and has lots of bubbling mud. Gotta visit Yellowstone sometime.
The hostel I stayed at had its own thermal pool. It wasn't terribly hot so I spent hours in there on Saturday night hanging out with some other travelers. I forced myself to go to be early (12:30) only to be repeatedly disturbed by the coughing and snoring of my unfortunate dorm mate. There were only two other women in that room, and one of them was a snorer! What are the odds? Of course, I always travel with earplugs but conveniently left them in Tokoroa for this short trip. I made do with tissue in my ears.
On Sunday morning I visited the Quaker meeting in Rotorua. There were 7 people there including me. They met at someone's house. It was great to be among Friends. They were very curious to hear about my adventures with bats in the pine forest! Dan and Donna, a couple from New York who are now New Zealand residents, invited me to their house for lunch after meeting. It was delightful! Then Dan and I went for a walk in the redwood forest near Rotorua. Yes, there are very large redwoods growing in New Zealand and no, they aren't native. These are California redwoods. They've become quite a popular tourist attraction and exercise area.
This is a slice of a 96 year old redwood. I think the tree was about as wide as I am tall. Quite a few of those growth rings are an INCH or more, which means this tree was growing TWO INCHES in diameter each year. I imagine the redwoods in their native range have 10 or more growth rings per inch.
On my way back to Tokoroa on Sunday afternoon, Lu's odometer rolled to 390,000 km. I think that's 243,750 miles. Go Lu!
I'm looking forward to visiting Rotorua again when Matt comes back to New Zealand. He's arriving in Auckland at 5:30 AM on my birthday (December 27). Then we'll have to pick another day that's not my birthday to celebrate Christmas together. Matt will get to celebrate Christmas at home with his family before hopping on a plane while I will be experiencing a real Kiwi Christmas at the beach with Kerry's family.
Carrie
4 comments:
Yellowstone rocks. I've been there twice. Lots of fun buffalo and bubbly earthen things. I think Dan and I had the most fun with the "mud pots", which make farting sounds and reminded us of the bubbling swamp scene in the movie Labyrinth (but thankfully don't smell that bad).
I think that's a good call on the Christmas vs. birthday thing, because the date of Christmas is totally made up, whereas your birthday is not.
Those are some amazing photos. I think it is funny to imagine you setting up a tripod and then running really far into position with just enough time to look relaxed before the shutter clicks!
Rotorua is Great!! It's totally touristy, but that's were I went to the traditional Mouri dinner. Did you get a chance to go to Hell's Gate? Its an awsome area that's really active, plus it has an AMAZING spa! I'm SOOOO jelous!!
Adam: I thought what I was doing was pretty funny too. I had to run a long way for that picture of me on the bridge! Thankfully there weren't really other people around when I was doing that (if there had been, I could've just asked them to take my picture, but the tripod was way more fun).
Jenna: I only did free activities in Rotorua so I didn't go to Hell's Gate. Maybe we'll go there when Matt and I go back to Rotorua. Unfortunately I think an amazing spa experience is currently out of our budget :-( I think we'll have to settle for the free thermal foot pools in the city park.
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