Jay made another awesome video! After nearly 11 months of living in New Zealand, we finally made it to the South Island and to a few spots in the North Island that we had not been to yet. We spent about 4 weeks on the road. It was a trip I will never forget!
We recently returned from a memorable trip to Rotorua, a city known for its geothermal activity and the stinky smell that comes with it (really, it wasn’t that bad). I was really starting to get burnt out from work and daily/weekly routines (it can happen, even when spending a year in New Zealand!), and this trip was the perfect cure. It was stimulating and reinvigorating, and made me excited for summer and excited to plan more trips.
We left Whangarei after work on Sunday night and arrived around midnight (it’s about a 5 hour drive from here). Jay got us through Auckland and then I took the wheel, and amazingly Jay did not fall asleep (he usually does)! He was an excellent road trip passenger, I was very pleased.
We camped in our car (on our new comfy foam bed!) and woke up every morning to a stunning view of Lake Okareka surrounded by rolling hills and ponga and pine forests. We would open the trunk door, crawl out of bed, place our bare feet in the dewy grass, throw on our bathing suits, and go for a morning swim. There weren’t any showers or running water at our campsite, so this also served as our daily bathe. The campsite was packed with other young travelers sleeping in tents and in their vans, and we met a few people from France and Germany.
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We kicked off our first day in Rotorua by going to a thermal park called Te Puia. It was a bit commercial, but Pohutu Geyser put on an excellent show for us! We also saw bubbling mud pools, steaming fumaroles, a hot aqua blue lake, a mock up of a Maori village, kiwis foraging for food in the Kiwi House, and we watched wood carvers and weavers in action at the National Carving and Weaving Schools. We spent a few hours at Te Puia, soaked up the warmth and sunshine, and left happy.
Then we decided it was time for a little adventure sport. We thought zorbing sounded fun (roll down a hill inside of a big plastic orb), but after seeing how small the hill was and how tame it looked, we decided to find something else to spend our $70 on. Nearby was the Agroadventure Park with a few adrenaline inducing rides. Jay tried unsuccessfully to convince me to go on the scary Swoop ride with him, instead we played with the nearby ostriches for a bit then headed over to Skyline Rotorua. We rode the gondola to the top of Mt. Ngongotaha and then rode luges down 3 different forested tracks with beautiful views, crazy turns, dinosaurs and unexpected jumps. I can’t stress enough how fun it was. There was an easy, intermediate and fast track, and we did five rides. Using a rubber band and a balloon he got from a guy working in the Skyline restaurant, Jay macgyvered a way to hold his GoPro in his mouth so he could film our luge rides (you have to keep both hands on the handlebar to steer). Jay crashed on our last ride, and luckily I got it all on film! After that, we made our way to the Sky Swing which Jay successfully convinced/forced me to go on. It was similar to the Swoop ride, but this one is placed on the side of a mountain. Not surprisingly, I had a panic attack two seconds after we started lifting up, and I sobbed and cursed at him the entire time. Unlucky for me, Jay got it all on film.
Exhausted after spending a few hours on the mountain, we went to a bar called Brew in Rotorua town center. We slumped into their leather couch with a tasty IPA in hand, and enjoyed the breeze coming in through the open windows. Then we walked to nearby Sabrosa and indulged in Mexican food and too many margaritas. It was a pretty great day.
Day two was just as awesome if not more awesome. We drove south of Rotorua to the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, another geothermal area turned into a visitor attraction. There is a geyser there as well called Lady Knox Geyser, but the people who run the park force it to go off at the same time every day by adding a little organic soap to get it going. We arrived just after this had taken place and found ourselves among tons of other people in a small, stadium seating-like setting watching this little geyser blow. It was sort of comical, and we were even more glad we had seen Pohutu Geyser at Te Puia. We waited for the crowd to thin and then we got some good pictures before heading to the main part of the park. Then my socks (if I had been wearing socks) were blown off. Maybe I was just so impressed because I love rocks and minerals and colorful earthly things, but one after another, there were incredible geothermal creations with cool names like Devil’s Ink Pots, Opal Pool, Inferno Crater, Champagne Pool (which was even more amazing than the pictures I had seen) and Primrose Terrace. We spent hours walking through this “wonderland." It was a hot, sunny day and we did start to get a little tired and hungry toward the end, but the makers of the path we were following weren’t going to let us end on a bad note. Devil’s Bath, a crater filled with neon green sulfur water and surrounded by cracking earth, was the last stop. If you ever go to Rotorua, go here! It’s worth every cent it costs to get in ($32.50, what a deal!).
A friend from New Plymouth told us about a free, natural hot pool just north of Wai-O-Tapu, so that was our next stop. It’s called Kerosene Creek and it’s a hot river that flows into a waterfall that drops into a clear, shaded hot pool. We threw on our bathing suits and swam around in this beautiful little part of nature.
After the sun and the heat had drained every bit of energy we had, we drove to Rotorua town center, parked at the edge of Lake Rotorua, opened the trunk door and napped. Well, tried to at least. A family of tourists were having a great time feeding the seagulls, right in front of us. They were laughing and shrieking for about 20 minutes. I was annoyed at first, but then it became very entertaining to watch. As soon as they left, we fed the rest of our bread to the seagulls and laughed hysterically at them all hovering over us and catching the bread we threw in mid air. I know, I know, “don’t feed the birds”…but it was fun!
Next stop was Brew again for another hoppy IPA and a break to charge my phone. For dinner, we went across the street to a place called Indian Star to enjoy a very spicy Indian meal and a bottle of BYO wine. Another successful day!
Before heading back to our campsite, we went on a misty, evening drive around some of the other lakes - Blue Lake, Green Lake and Lake Tarawera. Mt. Tarawera (the site of a massive volcanic eruption in 1886) was cloaked in a layer of clouds, but I could see its form across the lake from a quiet, waterfront cafe where I grabbed a hot chocolate to go. On our way back to our campsite, we saw a wallaby crossing the road! Yes, a WALLABY! Like a mini kangaroo! Jay spotted it and made me turn around and then we saw it bounce back across the road. It was a very exciting moment and the next morning we asked the campground guy about it because we were sure wallabies didn’t exist in New Zealand, but he said they sure do and that they are pests brought in by the Australians, just like the opossums!
We began our third day in Rotorua with one last swim in Lake Okareka then headed to Third Place Cafe for brunch. We sat by big open windows that looked out over Lake Rotorua and Ohinemutu, a living Maori village. Steam from underground thermal activity was rising up from the ground in spots scattered throughout the village, providing a pretty surreal view during our delicious brunch.
From there, we went to Government Gardens and admired the Rotorua Museum building, a former bath house, and smelled the roses in the colorful rose garden and watched the elderly play croquet on a manicured lawn in their matching red and white outfits.
We walked off our brunch with a short tramp (as they say here) through the towering Redwoods (yes, California Redwoods!). I was in awe of the giant trees and their moss covered, stringy bark, and giddy to be in a forest so quiet and damp, breathing in cool, fresh air. I felt so ALIVE! We crossed a pond with aqua, yellow, green and gray colors all mixed up into a beautiful scene. The plant life under the clear water looked like it had been frozen! Jay especially loved it.
We drove south to Wai-O-Tapu again to swim in another free, natural hot pool a bartender at Brew had told us about. It’s called HotnCold (where cold and hot rivers come together) and he said it was nicer than Kerosene Creek, but we disagree. The water isn’t clear and there are signs everywhere warning you to not dip your head under the water. It was a bit of a disappointment, but still nice to have a hot and cold soak before hitting the road.
We began our drive home, satisfied from a very fun trip and enjoyed the view we missed during the night we drove down. We stopped in Matamata to take a picture of the Hobbit house information center, picked up some juicy raspberries a man was selling by the road, and saw people boarding a bus for the Hobbiton movie set (Jay HATES Hobbits, so we stayed clear of that tourist trap).
