Rotorua

Rotorua

The sulphurous pong of Rotorua assaulted our nostrils as soon as we got near the city centre. After parking the car in a relatively odour-free multi-story, we set off on a hunt to find the source of the smell. We found it near the government gardens, where bubbling mud pools and natural hot springs conspire to make Rotorua both a destination for the curious and for those who want to ‘take a cure’.

There might well be some health-giving properties in the waters. The folks playing croquet in the photograph below were a spritely bunch. They looked like they had just come out of the pool in the film Cocoon.

The reason for our visit here wasn’t to ruin our olfactory senses. It was more cultural than that: Duck Tours.

The Duck Tours driver took us on a ride through the city, explained some of the city’s history and then drove us into a lake. One of two, actually: Lake Okareka (place of sweet food) and Lake TikiTapu. The legend is that a chief’s daughter lost her necklace (tiki) while swimming in the lake, and every chancer who tried to retrieve it was preyed on by a monster called Kataore. A group of warriors led by a young chief called Reretoroi sorted that out, and now the lake can be freely used by water skiers, power boaters and jet skis.

Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland

After lunch, we retrieved the car from the neutral-smelling car park and drove to the Wai-O-Tapu thermal wonderland – advertised as a “a spectacular showcase of New Zealand’s most colourful and unique geothermal elements sculpted by thousands of years of geothermal activity”.

We arrived just in time to be able to complete the walk around the whole site – 90 minutes required – and that takes you to the sights in these photos:

Whakarewarewa Forest

This is a literal breath of fresh air. 5,500 hectares of mostly redwood trees reaching a height of up to 75 metres. By now it was getting to the end of the day and we still had to find our Airbnb. So we only took a short walk into this lovely forest. Given more time it would have been great to hire bikes and cycle around. There are over 200 kilometres of mountain bike trails to enjoy here. But you can’t do it all.

As we walked around the trees, we came across an installation of rocks. This is Rocko – the Rotorocks Snake. The instructions are clear. Take a photo, leave a rock, watch him grow. Brilliant.

And that was that for Rotorua. Next time we are off to Hobbiton.