We're on the road again picking up a knacky old car, with a good boot space though to drive us across the North Island down to Wellington. First stop is Rotroua, and we're stopping off on the Coromandel Peninsula, which we could see from the top of Auckland's sky tower en route. First call is hot water beach - we're in volcano country and hot water beach is so named as you can dig your own hot spa in the sand. Its pretty amazing, as it fills up with hot water, and you can soak away your troubles. We're there just as the tide is coming in and there are plenty of pre-built holes that have been abandoned for us to use. Its an odd sensation that its too hot to stand in parts, but then the cool ocean comes in to make it all better. Its one of the most picturesque beaches we have been to, and we would like to spend more time here, but we're off to Cathedral Cove next, which is even more beautiful, with perfect calm blue seas, and islands in amongst them all. Looks a little bit like Thailand but nicer. There are some sea kayakers out there too, which we vow to do at some point down here.
You smell the sulphur of Rotorua as you get close to the beautiful lake on which it sits. Its kinda like Lake Bled in Slovenia, where we got engaged, but doesnt have the island in the middle! Rotorua is a small little town and our gateway to the geothermal area nearby. Its also Luce's chance for extreme sports in a zorb, kinda like a giant balloon which, once youre strapped in, is rolled off down a hill, and very funny. Not quite extreme enough for me though, so I watch from the sidelines as chief photographer.
Next stop is the Whaka thermal village where a Maori chap shows us around the permanently spouting Prince of Wales geyser, hot water pools which are used for cooking and giving steam facials, and the plopping hot mud pool. There are a lot of native Maoris living in the village and going about their daily life - its interesting to see how in stark comparison with Aboriginees, the Maoris have adapted to Western culture and lifestyle, including religion (there is an Anglican and a Catholic church in the village), and we don't get the same intimidating feeling that we did from the Aboriginees in Alice Springs. Its start of risotto week for our supper - they only have big packs of rice, so we're going to use it all up.
We're heading away from Rotorua next day back to the coast to Mount Maunganui a pretty coastal town with some high end property, and a chippy that similar to the UK is run by Asians. We get our lunch to take down to the beach, where we are surrounded by birds, including an almost albatross-sized beast who wolfs down an enormous deep fried crab stick (as disgusting as it sounds, we werent going to eat it) which was about 30cm long. I'm sure it struggled to get off the ground. After a drive through unremarkable Tauranga, we're back to Rotorua to meet Jon & Alix for a drink. They're on good form, and its great to see them after so long. We'll be seeing more of them in a week or so when we get down to Queenstown.
We're back on the road again from Rotorua next morning heading for Wellington via Lake Taupo, stopping on the way at Disneyland-sounding Waitapo Thermal Wonderland. We're there for the 1015 eruption of the amusingly named Lady Knox geyser - a little disappointing though as they have to put soap into the funnel to make the water spurt out. We know plenty of elderly Knoxes who will spout on endlessly completely unaided. Much more interesting though is the walk around the geothermal grounds - an other-worldly landscape of bubbling pools full of natural deposits, giving them hues that look like they are over polluted, steaming canyons, and plop-plopping hot mud pools. The amount of steam naturally rising from the ground makes the whole place very eerie, and the amount of minerals including sulphur make it not a little smelly either.
We're staying overnight at Lake Taupo, a cute little place on a lake! We're not lakeside in our budget accommodation, but you can see the lake from our bedroom window, beyond the McDonalds and Burger King sign. We soon understand why the American so-called restaurants are in town when the Kiwi Experience bus arrives and deposits dozens of 19 year old European gap year students on our previously quiet hostel. Not being 19 or a gap year student, we feel a little out of place (and not a little smug) as we continue with our tasty risotto week, while vats of pasta with dolmio or supernoodles are cooked up and dodgy smelling chilli is ladled out.
The last little jaunt in the North Island takes us down to Wellington, where we are staying with Gabrielle, one of Sue's friends who we have never met before. Unfortunately, the weather is not on our side for this bit of the journey, and the clouds have descended blocking out the views of the three tallest mountains - Tongario, Ngauruhoe & Ruapehu, so we're soon in the capital, hoping that we get to see the mountains when we reach the South Island...
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