4th and 5th June 2011 – Rotorua
When Nadia ended her email the other day with ‘enjoy the sulphur smells in Rotorua’, I had anticipated that she meant at the thermal areas around the town. Heading into Rotorua from the North, we took the scenic road and we’d only just entered the suburbs when Jon started glancing at me accusingly. “It’s not me”, I said, glaring back at him and we wound down the windows to discover the real source of the eggy smell. In fact all I achieved from winding down the window was to flood the car with more of the horrid smell.
I wonder if the sulphur smell is like that every day in Rotorua, or does it get better or worse when it’s warmer or colder or windier even? I’m not sure if I could live there, but maybe you get used to it. I could definitely get used to the hot springs all over the place though. We’ve just come from the local park where there are hot pools and steaming vents intermingled with the sports fields and kids play areas. It’s like nothing we’ve seen before and it’s just bizarre that the earth is warm beneath your feet even on an Autumn day like this. All the steam felt very magical…
Jonathan, of course, has been commenting on the possibilities of geothermal heat sources as we’ve been walking around. My only concern is that as there are so many steaming areas around town, your house could be burnt to ashes before anyone so much as notices that it is smoke and not steam!
It’s the Queen’s Birthday Weekend this weekend. I can’t believe they have a long weekend here for the Queen’s Birthday and we don’t at home. I guess it would be too near the late May bank holiday. Unfortunately the weather hasn’t been too great for it – it was miserable when we woke up in Hamilton, which didn’t really add to the prison-like hostel we were staying in. On the plus side, I’ve had a splendid 24 hours. When we arrived in Rotorua last night, we found a hostel linked to a climbing wall. You could sit in the bar area and watch the climbers half way up the wall. It felt so much like the UEA sports centre we had a good reminisce. The hostel also felt a bit like University halls of residence. We were discussing this while we made dinner and I don’t think either of us could go back to shared kitchens easily. You get so used to your own space!
After dinner, we decided to go and have a climb which was great but unfortunately meant me having to cut my nails. I was gutted because I was planning to paint them with the French polish miniatures Emma gave me and I’m still carrying around. I know – I clearly haven’t got much to worry about!
Anyway, it was really fun and we had the whole place to ourselves!
My 24 hours worth of enjoyment continued this morning when we headed out to the gondola that goes up the mountain behind Rotorua. We decided to take it to see the view and because there was a luge back down. Seen as we’d not been able to ride the luge at the Great Wall of China because of the snow, we thought that we should make up with this one. We weren’t entirely sure if it would be any good so we just got passes for two rides. We thought it might be a bit tame, a ‘Legoland’ style ride, as Jon describes it. However, luging in New Zealand is far more exciting than those in the UK. So much so that one guy finished the circuit with blood pouring down his leg! The Health and Safety talk was no more than an explanation of how to use the brakes and the fact that we had to go on the ‘scenic’ route first.
Even on that, Jon managed to go around a corner on 2 wheels! The advanced route allowed you to go so fast that we both took off going over a jump and considering how close to the ground we were it was pretty exciting! It was so good in fact that if we have time after touring around we might go back for another go!
I think I might move to New Zealand on the strength of the luging course at Rotorura. Jon says that this is what the Lake District is missing and I have to agree that if there was one we would totally be going for our 30th birthdays!
After all that excitement it was just about time to go back to the car for our picnic lunch – just like being little again and going out for the day with Mum and Dad. Apart from the fact that Jon is so greedy he wanted to eat the drink bottle as well as all the food!
