Todays plan was to get away early, but this of course didnt happen due to us losing the keys to the bike. A room wide search was undertaken all to no avail. We looked everywhere and had nearly decided that we needed to call a locksmith, when upon taking the tank bag off the bike, the keys were discovered stuck the the magnets on the underside of the tankbag. Doh!!!!
We had a brekky had a cafe in town. Can someone tell our moms we are eating ok...ta.
WE then headed to Hot Water beach which is where a hot spring bubbles to the surface on the beach. People hire spades at the local shop and dig holes in the sand , so making their own personal hot thermal bath to boil their asses in.
I didnt fancy having boiling hot sand inside my shorts, so later on whipped this little beauty up. heres some pics of us soaking up the hot thermal springs.
Ok so the bit about me whipping it up is bullshit. This was actaully in Rotorua at the polynesian hot springs at bit later on today.
From hot water beach we told Karen to take us the most direct route to Rotorua and while she did ok, we did have a bit of an argument after she took us the non scenic route, through the suburbs of Optere, but she soon sorted herself out and we set off via some great roads and scenery.
We had a bit of rain on the way but nothing too seriuos and it soon cleared.
We got to Rotorua soon after and after our relaxing soak headed to one of the local thermal parks to check out the thermal activity and boiling mud pits.
I think the name of the place we went to was wherethephuckarewe or something like that anyway.
The geyser in the pic above was pretty cool . It basically goes off every 45 minutes and shoots boiling water about 20 meters into the sky. Much better than the Kiama blowhole.
The boiling mud was pretty amazing as well.
From here it was back to our room at the hostel a quck change and into the bus for our authentic mauri village tour. This was actaually a pretty good laugh, with the kiwi bus driver taking the piss out of the aussies most of the time.
I was made cheif of our tribe (actaully the bus) and had to face up to the angry village cheif and his warriors, before being accepted and welcomed into the village for a tour and a hungi.
The show was much better than I thought it woukld be and Sam & I ended up having a great night. The food was fantastic as well. Certainly better than what you get at the outback spectacular.
wherethephuckarewe
So you have the local lingo sussed. Now you just need to learn to spell Maori and hangi. :-)
Posted by: RR | February 26, 2010 at 07:29 AM