This Saturday I went to Central Hawkes Bay to visit P. and H. They have such nice properties down there – if you only had money to afford it…
Of course by the time I got home from CHB and packed my stuff into Harry I was late leaving to meet B. in Tauranga. Even though I was running late I still had to stop in Taupo just to take a picture of Mount Doom which was looking great in the sunset with awesome clouds around it. I may have found myself speeding just a little trying to make up the time, as well as being naughty and texting B. along the way to try and arrange a meeting point. Somehow I managed to get myself lost enough to end up going through a toll booth and paying $1 to use some motorway that turned out to be the wrong place anyway. In the end I found where I was going thanks to the map in my trusty iPhone and I finally found B. and even the hostel we were staying at.
The guy at the reception for the hostel seemed to be stoned and couldn’t even get the eftpos machine to work for us to pay by card and after we paid with cash ended up giving us the wrong room key as well. Eventually we got the right key an got into our room. We caught up about all the things we had done and seen in NZ, and of course had a few drinks while we did it. Once the evening was late enough, and we had both had sufficient alcohol, we wandered into town to the recommended bars on The Strand – Cornerstone and the Bier Haus (must be some German influence around). We drank late into the night and played lots of pool with B. doing a dance of celebration every time she finally managed to sink a ball. We eventually stumbled back to the hostel at a very early hour and fell into our beds.
After a good sleep-in to recover a little we went out and about doing the local touristy things. This included a walk around Mount Maunganui on beaches that were made entirely out of shells rather than sand (my shell collection is growing…) and had a coffee and cake at a nice little cafe next to the beach. We drove north to Katikati, a nearby beach that was recommended in my guidebook. The „famous“ paintings on the houses there were pretty boring though and the village was tiny anyway. Only the beach was great, it had huge empty flats at low tide which looked a bit like the North Sea and reminded me of home. The atmosphere in the sunset was wonderful.
On the way back, we had a short stop at Pak’n’Save to get some supplies. We decided to get some mussels and of course some wine. Back home I started cooking while B. was trying to light the fire in the fireplace. She has lots of experience lighting fires in camping huts, but this one was obviously different and turned out to be very difficult to start. Before long the whole place was full of smoke. With much patience she eventually got it going and we could work on our dinner together. We ended up with a huge pile of delicious grilled chilli mussels with a glass of wine – mmm, delicious!
On Monday morning we left for Rotorua. The whole town smells like poop or, as the funny pricelist in our backpackers told us besides the roomprices, „Nausty eggy smell – free“. The reason for the smell is all the sulphur in the air from the thermal and mud pools.
First we visited the buried village Te Wairoa, which is stated on their Website as a „must-see for anyone visiting Rotorua“. The village was established by a Christian missionary in 1848 and eventually became a base for Maori guided tours to the famous and marble-like Pink and White Terraces. Just 38 years later, on June 10 1886, a huge eruption from Mount Tarawera destroyed Te Wairoa, the terraces and all the settlements around. Under the ash and mud 150 people died. Nowadays you you can see all the half buried houses and a good explanation of the events back then in the nearby museum.
After this rather sad lesson on local history we visited Te Puia – the famous geothermal valley. In the whole valley there is high thermal activity ranging from boiling mud to the world famous 30-metre Pohutu geyser. They also have hot springs, boiling sulphurous pools, silica terraces and bubbling mud pools. Alltogether it is an amazing place – just like I read in some magazine, the earth down here seems to cook.
Our guide, a wonderful Maori woman with an awesome sense of humour, showed us around and made the whole tour even better. They also have a kiwi house, where I got to see a real kiwi, YAY!! New Zealand without seeing at least one kiwi would have been only half as good.
Today we were on the road around 8am and made it past Taupo and over to the Tongariro National Park by 11am. We weren’t really early enough to do the crossing again and plus it is a bit further into winter so the snow and ice makes it much more challenging. Instead we did a hike to Taranaki falls and Lower Tama Lake. It took us about 4 hours there and back and we still got on the road early enough to make it home in time for B. to meet the family at the house and get settled before I left her there to head out to my salsa lesson.
