Sunday, 21st January 2018
What a lovely morning! We were up bight and early and had already reorganized our baggage the night before. Breakfast was outside on our picnic table and it was ever so peaceful. We packed the car and made sure we did not leave anything behind and were ready to hit the road again at 10 am.
The Huka Falls Resort was a good place to stay but their WIFI was terrible!! And nowadays you do need to be in contact with the world especially when being far away from home!
The drive to Rotorua was not far – only 60 km but we had a couple of sights we wanted to visit on the way. Gerry got to the driving seat quicker than I did so again I was in the passenger seat and this meant I had time to read up about the route we were taking. Am so glad I did get the Lonely Planet’s “ New Zealand’s best trips” with 26 amazing road trips. We used the information on for our trip from LP’s Classic Trip nr 7: Thermal Discoverer – but then in reverse.
We wanted to stop at Wai-Otapu Thermal Wonderland – but when we got there there were multitudes of people and coaches that we took fright and carried on driving! This is the first time ever that we saw so many tourists flocking to one area and we were not interested to be walking in queues along the thermal grounds. Of course this site had really interesting features such as the Champagne Pool (bubbling mud pool) and Lady Knox Geyser which spouts regularly at 10.15 in the morning ( anyway we would have missed that part!)
On the way and not far from the Wai- Otapu Thermal Wonderland, we saw a signpost saying Mud Pool to the left. We followed that and came to a smaller version of the Champagne Pool! There was mud bubbling away and the heat and stench coming from this mud pool was quite strong!
The pictures below were taken en-route to the Volcanic Valley – here you can see the rolling hills which were the typical views in this area till Mount Tarawera erupted in 1886 and a line of craters was formed from the northern end of the mountain down to the Waimangu valley.
So we drove further and arrived at the Waimangu VolcanicValley. This valley was created during the eruption of Mount Tarawera in 1886 and has spectacular craters, lakes and other volcanic features. All the lakes are bubbling boiling water and ultimately the overflow from these lakes finds its way to the lake mixing with a cold water rivulet and into Lake Rotomahana. It was time for our coffee break when we got here so we had time to study the hike downwards to the lake – luckily there was a shuttle bus to take us up again. Coffee break over we started on our hike.
After arriving at our motel – Golden Glow on Fenton Street and not far from the lake front, we had time to get into the jacuzzi – our own private one behind our bedroom! Then we were ready to hit the town – which we thought was very quiet till we found the Eatery Street!! Here we enjoyed a good meal although it was quite noisy to our liking – anyway another short walk before we got back to our motel and of course when we tried to use our WIFI, it was very slow and, knowing me, got quite annoyed!! Luckily I could finish my blog this morning!
