This weekend a group of 7 of us roadtripped up to Rotorua and Waitomo. We got off to a bit of a rough start when I went by bus with Sydney and William to pick up the rental car on Thursday evening. When we got on, the bus driver told us we were on the wrong bus (we weren't) and we ended up at a Burger King far away from the closed rental car location. Thursday also happened to be
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| Cruising along with Mount Ruapehu ahead. |
my birthday so that wasn't the best thing that could've happened, but when we arrived home defeated the entire program sang me happy birthday. My friends also bought me a cake and we celebrated despite the lack of rental car.
The next morning we got up early and retrieved the rental car more successfully than we did the first time around. Once we got going, the next 6 hours were smooth sailing with me driving and Brian DJ'ing. When we arrived in Rotorua, we went to Te Puia which is a mixture of Maori culture sites and geothermal sites. Rotorua is known for its geothermal activity and in fact has so much activity that the entire city smells of sulphur (technically hydrogen sulphide, but still). For anyone that doesn't
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| One of the many geothermal spots at Te Puia. |
know sulphur smells like rotten eggs or as Brian put it like someone shoved a bad boiled egg up his nostril. My sense of smell must not be very good since I didn't pick up any of the sulphur smells like the rest of the group. At Te Puia, we saw some of the most active geysers in the Southern Hemisphere as well as lots of hot springs and mud pools. The place was pretty touristy, but a lot of fun to see the natural geothermal activity of Rotorua. We stayed the night in Rotorua in a cool modern hostel that had a rock wall running along the inside of it (way cool!). I completely forgot my shower shoes so I had to shower in my socks, but hey you do what you gotta do.
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| The edges of the Champagne Pool. |
On Saturday, we went to the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland in the morning which showed off a lot more of Rotorua's geothermal wonders. While we were there, we walked the entirety of the park seeing everything from boiling black mud to highlighter green lakes to teal blue hot springs. For me the highlights were the Champagne Pool, the Ngakoro lake, and Devil's Bath. The colors of all three were so unique that I couldn't get enough pictures. I also may have totally nerded out over all the
different chemicals that form the varying colors, but that's just the biochemist in me.
After a morning in the Wonderland, we headed to Skyline Rotorua to do a wine tasting at Volcanic Hills Winery. The winery's tasting room is located at the top of a skyline gondola that overlooks the city and lake of Rotorua. On a clear day like we had that Saturday, the view was absolutely to die for. We stayed up there for much longer than we intended just taking in all the views. Since we spent so much time at the winery, we didn't have much time to go to Lake Tikitapu
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| Devil's Bath where it looked like a highlighter had been poured in it. |
(aka the Blue Lake) like we had planned, but we still stopped by. Like everything in New Zealand, the lake was absolutely stunning. Unfortunately with so much beauty and greenery, allergies hit hard and I had to hide out in the car. We then drove to Waitomo to prepare for our adventure the next morning.
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| Views from the winery. |
Waitomo most likely wouldn't even be on the map if it wasn't for their naturally occurring glowworms. Glowworms live on rocks and in caves and are actually larval flies that produce bioluminescence. To see the glowworms in all their glory, we booked a black water tubing adventure. Early in the morning on Sunday, we wetsuitted up and headed down to the caves. As we all stood at the cave entrance, our guide Kristen pointed a hole just big enough for a person and told us we were each going to pin drop 8m down to the water below. It was at that point that I wondered what on earth I was doing. Thankfully she was completely kidding and we climbed down into the
caves. The cave was 3 hours of wading through streams, crawling through holes in the rocks, and jumping off of waterfalls. For someone who is scared of heights, the jumping off the waterfall backwards with an inner-tube behind me was a bit scary, but it was a very cool experience. At point we all turned out our headlamps and floated together down the stream while the glowworms did
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| All suited up and ready for the glowworms. |
their thing up above us. The entire ceiling of the cave was lit up with dots of blue which was just surreal. After our adventure, we were all rewarded with hot showers, a bagel, and a cup of soup.
On our way back to Wellington, we made one last stop at Tawhai Falls in Tongariro National Park. The national park is located in an alpine environment (see my last post) and so when we pulled up the trail marker, there were only small bushes as far as the eye could see. No water. The walk was only supposed to be 15
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| Tawhai Falls. |
minutes roundtrip so we decided to check it out anyways. Sure enough about 8-10 minutes along the trail there's a stunning waterfall with crystal blue waters. That's just the alpine environment for you I guess. Anyways the waterfall was a nice break from driving and gave us enough motivation to get back to Wellington. It's back to classes and time to start preparing for the next adventure!
~S
