More fun in the North Island!

Michelle and Craig’s thoughts:

Okay, let’s continue with the North Island. Our next stop was Rotorua. Plenty to do in Rotorua and the surrounding area. The first day we visited the Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland. It is New Zealand’s most colorful and diverse geothermal area. We saw the Lady Knox Geyser shoot water and steam up into the air. We’ve never seen anything like that before. It was fascinating! So awesome! The area also had hot and cold pools, craters, mineral terraces, boiling mud pools and hissing fumaroles in a variety of colours. We just loved the different colours in the Champagne pool. It has a beautiful ochre-colored petrified edge. Quite stunning! Take note that the whole area had a pretty bad smell because of the sulphur. Don’t visit other sites after this thermal or people will look at you funny!

We also visited Te Puia. There we enjoyed a Maori cultural performance at the Te Aronui-a Rua meeting house and visited the Pikirangi Maori village. The performance was very entertaining. We also saw geysers Pohutu and Prince of Wales Feather and the boiling Ngamokaiakoko Mud Pool. We learnt that the bubbling mud pool is the result of acid gases and steam that cause the decomposition of minerals to form a white clay called Kaolin. The black sulphur turns it to grey and of course makes it so smelly. One of the weirdest things we saw was a hotel whose room balconies overlooked this large mud pool. The foul smell was so strong in that area, we can’t imagine people having a great time on their balcony. Yuk!

We took the Skyline gondola ride to the top of Mount Nongotaha and enjoyed the panoramic views of Lake Rotorua and the city. On the small mountain we went luging. A fun filled gravity ride on a three-wheel cart. There is the Scenic luge track which is a gentle ride through redwood trees, there is the Intermediate luge track with spirals and loops and the Advanced luge track which is fast and pretty exhilarating on the bumps. We went on five rides and they were pretty crazy. There were times when we went over bumps and curves and we held on tight as we flew off our seats. We could have done it all day. It was so much fun!

After Rotorua we stayed in Otorohanga to be close to the Waitomo caves. The highlight of the caves is the glowworms . We decided to book with the Black Water Rafting company and do a cave water rafting trip to see the glowworms. It was an adrenalin pumping underground adventure of tubing. We climbed down into the dark underground network, where streams spill, twist and turn to build a river canyon. Then we glided and floated down the river as we enjoyed the glowworm show on the vaulted limestone galleries above in the Ruakuri Cave. What was really scary was when we had to take leaps of faith over cascading underground waterfalls and hope we landed in our tube. It was an amazing rock, water and darkness experience. Crazy, but exhilarating!

Had so much fun!

Love,
Michelle and Craig