Rotorua , NZ Day trip (Hot Springs)

When researching what to do in New Zealand the town of Rotorua (ro TOR u a) kept appearing as a "must do." This was one of my early stumbling blocks and something that took me a while to be able to solve. One of the self-imposed rules for the trip was no driving. There is no mass transit from Auckland to this small town about two hours away from the city. Do we want to rent a car anyway? How about if we drive from Auckland to Rotorua, stay overnight and drive to Wellington? But, Don doesn't want to drive, and I most certainly do not want to drive. Renting a car in one city and returning it to another city made the trip prohibitively expensive.

And round and round I went and I was unable to mentally shift to planning for our second stop (Wellington) when I realized we could book a tour and have someone else do the driving.

Enter Viator.com. There were several options, but I chose THIS tour. Viator farmed it out to Cheeky Kiwi Travels, a local small business. We had options. I chose Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonders and Te Puia Cultural Center as our add-ons. This was another rainy day, but as Cameron, our guide, loaned us golf umbrellas, we did not get soaked. It was a dreary day, which is reflected in our photos. We could have cancelled 24-hours in advance and gone the next day instead, but opted to press forward and hope for the best.

Unfortunately the tour starting at 7:30 am was sold out, so I signed up for the 6:30 am start -- before the breakfast buffet opened at our hotel. I could not find any food to buy at that hour in Wellington. Fortunately, Don and I packed some granola bars from home for such an emergency, and Cameron packed snacks and water for us. 

Cameron was caffeinated. As he drove our small group two hours out of town, he chatted the entire time, teaching us some Maori words, telling us about the history and culture of the area, his life story, and more. I had my trusty notebook with me and dutifully took notes. Our group included a Swiss exchange student, two women from Mexico, and two women from Hong Kong. Unlike most tours, we each chose a different combination of activities. We could have chosen a spa, or just walking around town instead.

We drove south out of Auckland. In the 1960s there was a huge migration from the Pacific Islands landing in Auckland. Auckland has 1.7 million people and is the largest city by geography. Somehow the Gold Rush of the 1800s came up. Then we switched to a cyclone that hit last winter -- which is very rare for New Zealand. 

New Zealand is known for having sheep. Tourism is at 75% of pre-pandemic levels. The totem poles on the side of the road are an old Maori village. Elections are coming up in five weeks. The Treaty of 1840 kicked off wars. In 1995 they came to an agreement and returned some land to the Maori.

The topics bounced about like a ping pong ball. While I found them all interesting, I was having troubles keeping up with his train of thought. Did I mention I was still lacking breakfast?

Finally we stopped for a quick break.

We passed through Tirau, a town with buildings made out of corrugated metal. It is only now that I looking through my notes that I thought we would stop in the town for a quick walk. Not sure why we didn't stop, other than it was really raining at that point. The buildings looked pretty cool from the highway.

We then passed a mountain range where it used to snow. Heard about the 2019 eruption of the White Island / Whakaari volcano where 22 people died -- many of them were tourists. There is a Netflix movie about it. Lake Rotorua was created between two volcanos.

The Maori make up about 16% of the population of New Zealand.

As I read my notes from this ride, I am wishing I blogged while in New Zealand instead of waiting until I got home. Very little of my notes make any sense. Very disjointed thoughts. Partially because Cameron was speaking in a stream of consciousness format describing what we saw along the way. Of our group of seven, Don and I were the only people who spoke English as our primary language, only the Swiss exchange student could have possibly followed everything he was saying.

Driving through the area we started to smell the rotten egg aroma of sulfur and see some steam coming out of the ground. Throughout history Rotorua has been recognized as having healing powers in their geothermal hot springs.

We passed the Princes Gate and Archway created in honor of the 1901 visit by the Duke and Duchess of York. There are lovely gardens in the park. My notes say it was in honor of Princess Diana's visit, but my search shows otherwise. On the way back we stopped to snap pictures of it, along with Rachel Spa.

We heard about the legend of the island romance of Mokoia Island in Lake Rotorua between Hinemoa and Tutenakai. Click on the link to listen to the legend.

Clearly the area suffered when the pandemic closed tourism.

Cameron dropped off the first group to Te Puia, the cultural center we would visit in the afternoon. Along the drive we paused at a natural mud pool called Waiotapu. It felt like something out of a 1950s horror film with the thick popping of warm mud and the steam settling above it. We were warned to stay on the boardwalk because the mud is hot. On the cold, drizzly day, it still not look appealing.

Cameron dropped us off at the Waiotapu tourist attraction. The name means holy water (or water holy), which is why they share the same name.

We were loaned umbrellas, which we appreciated. Wai-o-tapu has three paths, with two loops. We were free to do all, some, or none of the loops. Of course, we choose all of the loops, taking most of the time we were allotted walking around and taking pictures. We had just enough time to enjoy some tomato soup before the van picked us up for our second stop. The next post will show pictures from our day. Even with the grey skies, we could see the potential of what it would look like on sunny day. If you are reading this as you plan a trip, try to go when the sun is shining. Viator.com allows cancellations within 24 hours for no fee. Something to keep in mind.