lolNZ: Rotorua

Rotorua – 1st day

The road from Wellington to Rotorua was long and windy, but offered a whole range of stuff to gawk at. The Lord of the Rings -esque countryside rolled along seemingly endlessly, a slightly lusher version of what I saw on the way to Queenstown on the South Island earlier -- only there weren't nearly as many roadkills, I think I only saw a couple of flattened rabbits on the way. There are also a lot more Maori on the North Island. Coincidence? One might think so.

At times the road also snaked its way through forests and steep ravines, or wandered endlessly through barren fields with towering, snow-topped volcanoes in the middle. All in all, very nice views. It took 7 hours to reach Rotorua, but I think I actually played with my camera more than I did with my DS.

Traveled by Naked Bus. Unfortunately everyone wore their clothes; Australia might be the new US, but nature isn't the only thing in NZ still offering good things to stare at.

Passing Mount Ruapehu, the largest active volcano in New Zealand (2797 m) and one of the most active volcanoes in the world.

Lake Taupo right after Mount Ruapehu. It is actually an enormous crater of one of the few known super volcanoes in the world. (Remember all the fuzz earlier this year over the seismic activity in Yellowstone in US?)

After arriving to Rotorua I walked briefly around the town (it's a tiny place), had dinner and decided to settle in early into my dog house sized hotel room to compensate for all those early mornings of sightseeing and traveling so far. Fat chance. The walls were made of paper and in the next door, another pair of idiots with their 2-year old, who finally stopped screaming his lungs out around 11pm. Good parents, nice parents. George Carlin really said it the best.

Here's a little panorama of one of the intersections in Rotorua central. Tiny tiny place.

Subtle little hint at my hotel for the visitors to use the toilets instead of pissing in front of the reception?

Rotorua – 2nd day

At the check-in the day before I had also booked a trip to two volcanic spots near the town: Wai-o-tapu and Waimangu. They both involved a good deal of walking, but it was definitely worth it: both places featured a lot of never-seen-that-befores to me. Just check the photos below. Rotorua and central New Zealand in general aren't exactly the kind of places that can be well described in words alone.

Boiling lake of mud. I bet I could sell that stuff for 50 euros a bottle for the women and metrosexuals of the world. The air in that place smelled very heavily of pea soup.

Lady Knox geyser. It erupted soon after I took this picture, but it wasn't all that cool. Just turn your shower head to point upwards and imagine what it would look like, if there was enough pressure to send the water up 10 meters.

There were several craters like this in Wai-o-Tapu, apparently the ground caved in into an underground river. There was a constant churning, bubbling sound audible from below, as well as frequent eruptions of steam.

Path over a hot lake. There are no railings, because the water at that point is very shallow and quite cool to touch. The steamy place in the corner of the picture on the other hand...

Hot waterfall, never popped into my head before that there might be such a thing in this world. :)

Champagne pool and me. Very pictoresque, but unfortunatelly the steam kept covering it all.
The pool is nice, too, of course.

More colors.

Devil's Bath, they call this one...

Onward to the Waimangu Volcanic Rift Valley. The mountain in the background is Mount Tarawera (1111 m). It erupted in 1886, destroying everything visible in the picture below, making the Waimangu valley probably the youngest ecosystem like this in the world.

Me, Frying Pan Lake and the Cathedral Rock. Frying Pan Lake is the largest hot spring in the world, created by the 1886 Tarawera eruption, and very active, having erupted itself many times, reshaping the neighborhood, hurling around water, mud and rocks, occasionally killing people. Next to this place the largest geyser in the world was active for some years in early 20th century.