The weekend with a trip to Rotorua

 Hi,

Okay - let me preface this post with:  Rotorua, why have I always treated you with such ignorance?   I am going to guess it was when I was 10 years old and we visit Rotorua.  The overwhelming memory is the smelliness of the place.  But really, you get used to it.  And you really only notice it after a while when you are really close to something venting out of the earth.

It does not deserve this and now has a feeling of magic about it for me.  Rotorua should be on everyone's list to get out and explore cultural and outdoor activities.

Right.  Let's see how the long weekend panned out.  Matariki celebrated as a public holiday for the first time.  And I am going to say, enjoying it with whanau in a place like Rotorua has upped the ante for future Matariki holidays.  

Sally picked Mike up from home at 4.30pm and then Andrew from his workplace and me from mine and we were shortly driving to the airport.  Parked in covered parking and wandered into the terminal.  Sally got us into koru and we ate our dinner there.  Soup for Sally and Andrew, cheese for me and a bit of everything for Mike.  With wine.  :-)

Flight to Rotorua left at 1830 and was uneventful.  A wee Dash 8.  Took just over an hour. We only had carry on luggage so we were in and out super fast in WLG and Rotorua.  Landed and found our rental car at Hertz without any bother.  We had a Holden Spark.  And it was tiny.  Like driving a roller skate.  Everything felt tinny and plastic.  But it did the trick.  We only wanted a runabout for town and a short distance beyond.  But if we had suitcases it would not have coped.  The number plate started with MKL.  "Mikkel" is what I called the wee car in my head.  And maybe out loud a few times.

I headed into town - which is about a 15 - 20 min drive from the airport.  It was cold and dark and perhaps I needed to wait another few minutes to defrost the windows - but it was all ok.  Found our place - a B&B run by Mike and Peter.  Very close to the centre of town.  They made us feel very welcome and their house is set up for their guests superbly.  They look after their place well.

Mike and I got up early Friday morning for a run through the park over the road.  Kuirau Park.  It has thermal areas bubbling all over it.  The grass was crunchy and the temperature was close to zero.  Mike found it hard to breath the crisp air.  So I ran and he mainly walked.  But I was so distracted by the thermal activity as I ran, that I had a really slow time for my 3km run.  Hahahah.  But it was lovely and got us out of bed so we were ready for the day.  At one point Mike stepped over tape that closed off the path.  The thermal water had come up over the path and eroded the path.  We stepped through warm water for a bit - just shoe sole depth.  But I did feel warm feet through my sneakers, so it must have got a wee bit damp underfoot.

Crunchy grass

Atmosphereric

Little smelly

Back to the B&B for a cooked brekkie.  Poached eggs.  Cereal.  Toast.  Great.  Then off to go for a walk to explore the park and then the lakeside.  Rotorua have been doing up their lakeside to great effect.  There is a little more to do - but we have seen the bulk of it now.  And it is great!

Is it hot?

Mike tests the water

In the park

Tree through the steam

Waterfront band pic

Stunning boardwalk

Selfie time

Iced latte at Pic Nic

We popped into a cafe called Pic Nic and enjoyed a date scone and coffees (the icier the better - you know it!).  Then we ended up finding lunch not long after at The Fat Dog.  Which is joined to The Fainting Goat.  But it was so busy that we ended up in the Fainting Goat part and discovered they cover both menus.  And the food was really good.

We may have gone there a lot over the weekend.  :-)

We then headed to Tarawera - looked out over the lake.  Read about the huge volcanic eruption in the early hours of June 10, 1886.  Over 120 people lost their lives as the eruption obliterated the pink and white terraces and spewed up ash and mud that buried the countryside for kilometres.  We went to a village that was close by to the volcano, but protected from the massive devastation of the blast itself by a hill. Te Wairoa. However, it did get showered in mud and ash, causing a lot of deaths.  Excavations have found some whare and European buildings and artefacts.  They have an excellent museum and a self guided tour of the buried village.  There is also a stunning stream that we followed to a waterfall - so beautiful.

Lake peep

Buried village walk

View from whare

Beautiful stream by the village

Waterfall

Stunning second drop of the waterfall

Back to the B&B and a quick rest ahead of the night time tree top walk.  Mike and I were quite taken with this.  But on the Friday evening, with no rain forecast, it seemed everyone also wanted to do the same thing.  Our queue was 40 minutes before we even got onto the tree top walk.  We were in a group of 8 (max number on bridges) but after our first platform we lost our group.  We tagged into others.  Took us just over 30 mins - and it was great fun.  I would totally do this again.

Entertained while waiting in the queue

Lovely lighting

Mike on one of the platforms

Hard to show how lovely and magical it was

Ferns lit up

One of the bridges

Met Sally and Andrew in town at Leonardos in Eat Street afterwards.  Had some entrée food and then headed back to the B&B.

Up early for our 8.15am check in at the Rotorua Canopy Tours Ultimate ziplining adventure.  So early that we couldn't get our cooked brekkie - but the continental one was good.  At the Canopy tour office at 8.15 only to hear that they expected our party of 7 (huh?) in two separate bookings (huh?) yesterday (huh?).  And there was no space to fit us in today.  Unless we wanted to do the original tour instead of the ultimate one.  The staff were lovely - they also had no clue how this mix up had happened - and eventually with some juggling fitted us into the 8.30am tour the following day instead.

So we wandered off with unexpected time.  We decided to have a coffee at Third Place again.  And followed that up with a visit to the village at Whakarewarewa.  We did the self guided tour here too.  The guided tour was only once a day at midday.  It was only 10am so we wanted to get stuck in now.  The village itself was offlimits unless you had a guide.  But the track was lovely with great views over the thermal area.  We could see Pohutu in the distance doing its thing.

Mike on the walk around Whakarewarewa

Good boardwalks through the thermal area

Steam over the wee lake

Looking over the village

Pohutu doing its thing

Here we are

Pohutu (the big geyser) is in Te Puia - which is managed by the govt for now with iwi taking it on very soon, now it is established.  But from the viewpoint above Whakarewarewa you could see into that area quite well.  Vert atmospheric.  Also well worth our time.

Mike and I also squeezed in a day time tree top walk.  No queues for us - we could walk right up.  You get 3 days to use your ticket for a day (or night) walk.  Which is kinda nice.  Day time was good fun - but if you had to choose between them - choose the night time one.  

Day walk

Look up!

Okay!

Imagine a photo of the tree tops looking up here.  But the webpage will not let me add it in.

Highest point

Selfie bomb

However, I love the Redwoods area it is in.  The Forestry tried out a bunch of different trees in NZ to see what could be useful  Redwoods were not one of them.  But they have left a stand of stunning trees.  And the tree top walk is integrated into this.  Sally and Andrew did a walk at ground level while we were in the trees.  They had done the tree top stuff last time they visited.

Back to Fainting Goat for sustenance.  Then Sally rested while Mike, Andrew and I walked around Sulphur Point.  Lovely walk.  Mike and Andrew checked out the river paddle steamer.  I did not as there were signs saying Keep Out.  This also pertained to the thermal area which Mike neglected to understand and got close to some of the steaming areas.

Went back to rest up ahead of dinner out.  I wanted a cheese board to share and Fainting Goat looked good.  But they were full.  As were a few other places on Eat st.  But there was a cheese board at Ambrosia's on Eat St.  There was also a birthday party with 90 people there.  But they seemed to mainly be in the pub section.  We got a table and ate there happily.

Next day we were up early and packed.  Another yummy continental brekkie from Peter before saying goodbye and heading to Canopy Tours.  Okay - this was a highlight.  Awesome place - awesome staff.  Our guides, Harry and Steph, felt like mates we hadn't seen for a bit.  Good, friendly banter.  We got kitted up with good jackets and a full harness with gear attached.  Then into the van with the other punters.  Full van.  People all over NZ (but quite a few from AKL).  Told to go to the toilet before we left as if we needed to go while on the tour, Steph had to supervise and she liked to watch you.  OMG - made me lol.

Anyway.  We headed 20 min up the road to Danseys Road Scenic Reserve.  Some virgin bush never been felled.  Beautiful.  Rimu as the big trees.  Tawa and other trees in the mid canopy.  Ferns all over the place.  Silver ferns and mamaku - the latter grow up to 20m height.  So definitely something we'd see on our adventure.

Kitted up

Headed into the bush for a short walk before our first wee zipline.  Climbed up some stairs to a platform and then a short zipline to get used to the gear and the process.  Harry and Steph were fantastic. And we chatted to some of the punters too.  Megan and Bruce from Rolleston were good fun.  And Veronica and her partner from AKL - her partner had a fear of heights but it was impressive how he did every single zipline.  Even I wasn't too keen to step out onto tiny steps facing a huge drop.  I can't imagine how he gritted his teeth and pushed himself to do it.  Good on him.  He never caused any bother or fuss either.  Just edged himself out the easiest way and launched himself off.

Mike sets off

Crossing a bridge

Happy punters

Abseil at the end

At one point, Harry said:  oh - I see we have a little robin visiting us.  Who wants to volunteer.

And Andrew nudged me fwd and I fell into our circle of punters and said:  me?

I got to hold a live meal worm and the robin flitted in, I felt the lightest of touches and he grabbed my worm and made off with it.  Wow!  I was so chuffed.  The tour operator has a permit to feed them - but only two worms per bird.  And they have two birds that come.  One robin near the start - and one wee tomtit called Toby towards the end.  Wow!

Anyway.  3.5 hours later.  I cannot recommend this highly enough.  The staff were amazing.  The guides were so good at what they did I felt safe the entire time.  The staff at the office were so keen to solve any issue.  They all asked if they could help when we tried to pay.

Mike had hired a Go Pro.  And because we were a little late grabbing it, he hadn't paid until we got back.  Then we wanted some souvenir t shirts.  Well, that caused issues with the POS machine.  In the end we got the t shirts for $50 and the Go Pro for $49.  I ended up paying $99.  Mike got some awesome footage.  Our Go Pro action might not be top notch.  But the videos and pics are a great reminder of the awesome fun we had.

While we were chasing around in the trees, Sally did the gondola ride (to suss it out for our mountain bike holiday at some time in the near future) up the hill above Rotorua.  Great views over the lakes.  Not so good with their coffee at the top.   It looks a lot more functional than the gondola ride at Queenstown which is spectacular itself.  This one only goes up halfway.  But there are gondolas for your bikes and you get to ride down.  So - that's now on the bucket list.

A quick lunch stop at Third Place.  Then another walk under the Redwoods (I wanted to see what the MTB trails were like - but we ended up walking for an hour instead).  Then the car got filled up with petrol and we returned it at the airport and waited for our 4.30pm flight home.

Palmerston North

Kaikoura mountains

Lovely views coming into Wellington - no wind and clear skies.  Stunning.  Like the day we left.  Sally and Andrew dropped us home and we unpacked and got ready for the working week.  

As I type, I am WFH.  The builders are doing the two windows downstairs today.  Phew!  Busy.  Lucky they have good weather for it.

More WFH tomorrow - and they may just finish tomorrow I reckon.

Have a wonderful day and week ahead.

Love,
Angela