As you drive into Rotorua the first thing you notice is that there is steam coming up all over the place. The second thing you notice is the smell. It's a kin to rotten eggs. The first is due to all the thermal areas, basically there's a load of hot water coming out all over the place. The second is due to all the sulphur being thrown out by these thermal areas. You get used to not breathing through the nose. First thing I did when I got there was to take a walk around the park. The water in the pools was pretty warm considering it was such a cold day. It was a nice park but the problem was that when the wind changed direction the chances were that you were going to get a face full of warm, eggy smelling steam. Not nice.
That evening me and some of the people from the bus went to Tamaki Maori Village for the cultural experience. The bus driver who drove us over to the village was hilarious and the price of the night was worth it alone for him. He began to tell us a bit about Maori culture and stuff. He was explaining what 'Kia Ora' means and translated it into 63 languages. His accents were spot on and he just mocked every nationality. A Chief was chosen for the group, basically the only guy on the bus who played rugby because, according to the bus driver, only real men play rugby.
The first experience we had was the Powhiri. This was done back in the day to suss out whether the new guys came in peace or were there the start a fight.
It was pretty intense stuff and I don't know how the chosen chiefs were able to keep a straight face when the warriors were doing all their moves in their faces. Once a peace offering was laid down and accepted we were allowed to enter the village. Here we got to learn about how the Maori people lived and more about their cultural practices - tattooing, weaving, carving, training and cooking - that kind of thing.
From there we watched our food for the night be taken out of the hangi pits. The food had been cooked in the ground over hot volcanic rocks and the cheifs had to dig it out.
While to food was prepared we went into the meeting house for a cultural performance. It was pretty cool and I think I just sat there a little bit in awe as they sang, danced with poi and did the haka. The food was actually amazing and after a couple of living on soup and pasta, a huge roast dinner was pretty good. Before leaving all the men attempted to do the haka. I will never stop laughing at how funny little white guys look next to huge Maori men while trying to do the haka.
The drive home was as entertaining as the way there, if not better. The bus driver sang us about 15 different national anthems and got different people on the bus to sing songs in their languages. Then came the sing song of the wheels on the bus, the bus driver taking it pretty literally. Then the sing a long of 'here we go round the mulberry bush', during which the bus driver drove around the round about countless times. We met everyone at the pub next door in time for the quiz, which we won and got four nights free accommodation! I knew my knowledge of chick flicks would come in handy one day.
After Rotorua, the next stop was Taupo. The weather was terrible so I didn't really see much. We went to Huka Falls but I was quite underwhelmed by it, it just reminded me of places I'd seen in Norway.
Lake Taupo is huuuuge but I couldn't see the mountains (volcanos) in the distance as it was too cloudy. As I wasn't keen on doing a sky dive or bungy jump I decided to skip ahead a day on the bus, so the next day I boarded a new bus and began the journey down to Wellington. We spent one night in River Valley lodge where there should have been the chance to go rafting and horseback riding but because the weather was so bad it was all cancelled. Instead we just sat in front of the fire and played card games. This was the cheapest place I've stayed (at 22 dollars for the night) but it was probably because I was sharing a room with 15 other people. It was pretty crazy.
The lodge was pretty nice but the toilets and showers were outside, which was just a massive effort when it was raining. I braved the weather to get a shower. I was enjoying the hot water trying to forget the cold wind coming through the shower room when I see this huge spider on the shower curtain. I then realise there's actually two of these spiders which were unlike anything else I've seen. I try to tell myself that I'm ok and as long as they don't move I'm ok to finish showering. They start moving. So mid hair wash I rush out of the shower. Obviously there would be someone just outside to witness all this, much to my embarrassment.
Early the next day we set off for Wellington. On the way we stopped off at some place where a scene from LOTR 2 was filmed. It's the bit where Gollum is catching fishes in the night doing his 'my fishies' speil.
We also stopped off at a place called Bulls. This town obviously liked to play on their place name. The pub was called the 'Social-a-bull', the library 'Read-a-bull', the police station 'Const-a-bull'. All the bins had 'Response-a-bull' on them. It was a quirky little place. It was probably the only place where the local estate agent, a woman in her late 50s, would us 'No Bull' as her slogan.
We got into Wellington at about 2pm yesterday. After checking in at the hostel I took a walk along the harbour and went to the museum, wasting a couple of hours. It was interesting but some of it is just the same as I had seen in other museums. Today I took another walk around and took the cable car up to the botanical gardens.
The problem with travelling on your own is that there are always arm length photos and self timer photos, all of which never quite turn out right. I still don't know what I think about Wellington. I don't think cities are something that New Zealand does particularly well. Don't get me wrong I like Wellington and Auckland but when compared to cities in Europe, they're kind of rubbish and there isn't much to do. I still love living in Auckland though, I just wouldn't say it's a holiday destination.
Tomorrow I'm getting the bus over to the south island to Nelson and will travel along the west coast for a little bit before heading over to Christchurch and then back up to Auckland.
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