Rotorua
Accommodation: Fri 7th Feb – Sun 9th Feb
Fri 7th Feb
It was another beautiful mild morning that Mark started with a bike ride and I started with a walk. We were heading down to Rotarua today but were on a bit of a time budget as we had a Rail cruising activity booked for 11 am and it was a one hour drive to meet the start of this tour. The Rail-cruising involved 2 hours of traveling in a small, 4 seater automated carriage along 14.4 km of reclaimed rail track. We travelled through the rolling hills of the Bay of Plenty country side and enjoyed some pretty farmland views. This was an ok activity but not one I’d really recommend. If I had my time over I would have preferred to visit the Kiwi hatchery instead.
The completion of the rail cruising tied in nicely with check-in for our Rotorua accommodation and this was another good find. The two storey duplex was a nice, clean, modern and huge space where we would be very comfortable for the next two nights. The location was excellent too as we looked out over a park that fronted on to Lake Rotorua. It was also exciting to find a BBQ on the balcony, as well as a well stocked pantry and kitchen, meaning our first home based meal might be on the cards.
We didn’t dwell for long at base though as we had a 4 pm pick up for our next activity which was a Te Pa Tu Māori Cultural Experience with Dinner. This was an ok evening but is another activity that I would not recommend. Although I do have some fine video footage of Mark learning the Hakka! Hopefully tomorrow’s visit to the Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal Wonderland will be more impressive.
One small footnote here though: The dinner part of the evening involved us sitting with a couple from Germany and a mother and daughter from Texas. As soon as the mother announced they were from Texas, there was a noticeable pause with all of us around the table. Polite conversation soon followed after that but I did notice the two Germans, sitting directly opposite the Texans, had a slight look of disdain on their faces whenever they were looking at the Texans. I was busting to ask the Texans if they were Trumpers or not but I’m fairly certain they were. I think the fact they didn’t announce that they weren’t Trumpers was rather telling. During our travel last year, the US election year, whenever we would meet Americans the first thing usually out of their mouth after you’d meet them was “oh, we’re not Trumpers”. LOL It was all rather reminiscent of after Brexit: any Brit we’d meet would usually announce, very quickly, which way they’d voted.
Sat 8th Feb
It was another beautiful morning which we started with a walk along the Lake Rotarua boardwalk. Our only scheduled activity today was a half day tour out to the Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal Wonderland that started at 9 am. I was rather glad for that as yesterday’s two activities, that took up most of the day, were just a bit too much.
Our visit to the geothermal area was an interesting experience. Our tour started with a 45 min drive out to the area and our first stop was at the Lady Knox geyser were we saw her go through her motions, although we think this was somewhat artificial. They said she goes off every 24 ~ 48 hours but there were literally hundreds of people there watching and she vented as soon as one of the staff gave her a ‘peace offering’. Our next stop was at Wai O Tapu where we spent a couple of hours walking through the geothermal space and exploring the landscape of colourful steaming lakes, craters and terraces. There were some impressive orange ponds, caused by iron oxide and a bright yellow crater, caused by the sulfur.Our third and final stop was to inspect some bubbling mud flats. We had thought we’d have a guide with us as part of a small group tour for the whole outing but this was not the case. We only had a driver take us to our three destinations and she was friendly enough and answered questions but offered zero information. Had we known this in advance we’d probably just have driven ourselves for the day as it would have given us more flexibility.
Our driver had also dropped off another group of people at the nearby Waimangu Volcanic Valley. When asked what the difference was between the two sites she said that Waimangu didn’t have the geyser or mud flats and it was a place that involved more hiking but had a boat trip included. She also said there weren’t the colorful baths and craters that we’d seen at Wai O Tapu so I think we’d chosen the best geothermal area for our needs and wants.
It was 1.30 pm by the time we got back to our duplex and our plan had been to visit a redwood forrest and do a 40 minute Tree Top walk but I was in a bit of pain so didn’t think it wise to add to my 12,152 steps with another walk. We had a couple of cave experiences booked in for tomorrow, that I did not want to miss, so thought it best to rest up. It was also very very hot! Our phone app suggested it 23 degrees and cloudy but the reality was very different. The sun here is much more intense and you’d really not want to be outside at all if you could avoid it. Mark considered going for a bike ride but decided it was too hot so he set off to go for a forrest walk on his own. He got home around 4.30 pm and was very hot so decided to try out the spa. I’m not sure how that was going to help given the spa was at 38 0C but I got in there as well. It just reinforced how I don’t like sharing other peoples warm bath water and much prefer the cool of a swimming pool.
Our excitement about having a barbecue dinner with short-lived. There was no gas for the barbecue and so we ended up having pan fried chicken.
Our night took a slightly worse turn after that. I decided to check what I had paid for our tour today versus what entry fees alone would have set us back. I found that we had paid over $350 Aussie dollars for our supposed ‘guided tour’. Whereas entry fees alone would’ve set us back $85 Aussie dollars. Given that we didn’t have any guide just a driver I was, to put it mildly, very annoyed. This is a matter I’m taking forward with Get Your Guide. But this is a lesson for all of you out there too. These booking portals, Get Your Guide, Viator, all of them. Make sure you know what you are paying for and that you are not paying well in excess of what you should be paying. They’re thieves!
We enjoyed our short stay in Rotorua and think two nights was plenty of time to explore the area. Our accommodation was great and I would highly recommend this if you were after a house / apartment style stay in Rotorua as opposed to a hotel. If you’re after a hotel then the Novotel Lakeside was just around the corner so I’d recommend that based on location as their higher rooms would likely have lake views. Next stop: Waitomo Caves.