The minute you step off the bus into Rotorua, it hits you... the smell of Sulfur, from the geo-thermal pools that surround the town! Rotorua is also a hotspot for cultural (Maori) and adrenaline (Zorb) tourism. A guided day trip to Wai-O-Tapu will take you to some fascinating steaming pools of water (seen here), bubbling mud and even an erupting geyser.
There is a lovely two hour walking tour on the premises of Wai-O-Tapu, self-named as a "Thermal Wonderland" and "New Zealand's most colourful and diverse volcanic area".
As you can see, there is steam everywhere.
And different coloured pools of geo-thermal mineral enriched water.
This water area, named the Champagne Pool, appeared almost turquoise and the soil below the water has become petrified and rust coloured.
Another angle of the Champagne Pool.
This pool was eerily coloured bright lime green and opaque from all of the minerals within.
You might want to take their warnings seriously... I wouldn't want to fall into any of those pools of water.
Interesting patterns in the hardened mud surrounding some of the pools.
Here is the geyser we were all going to see erupt sharply at 10:30am.
Clearly this was a huge tourist attraction with tons of people lining up the benches.
Though watching the geyser erupt 15 feet was fascinating, I was really shocked to see that to make it erupt, a park ranger put several large discs of laundry detergent powder in the mouth of the geyser (since mother nature doesn't wear a watch). They didn't even say whether the soap was bio-degradable or not. Imagine the long term effect of that much detergent used on a daily basis in the area. Yikes ! Ok, I'll get off my soapbox for now.
It was really fascinating to see the bubbling mud, as I've never experience this before. You can go for a soak in a hot mud spa near Rotorua for the ultimate unique health escape (I doubt it's bubbling though).
The Kiwi Encounter at Rainbow Springs was very interesting and educational - only about 10-20,000 kiwi birds left in New Zealand, the only place in the world where you can find kiwis. We were able to see the endangered Kiwi bird's eggs, adult kiwi birds running around in a dark room (it is a nocturnal bird) and learn about its habitat, threats, etc.
This is a stuffed kiwi bird and its egg (photographs were not allowed in the dark room where the live kiwis ran around). Kiwi birds are flightless and spend most of the night hunting for worms and spiders.
This is the Rotorua Museum. I found it was not that exciting inside. If you do go, the cinema experience covering Rotorua's past was worthwhile to watch.
The entrance to the gates in front of the Rotorua Museum is grand and ornate, adorned with maori statues.
I couldn't help taking this shot... these statuettes have cute bums. ;c)
Cactus Jacks located in Rotorua's center/CBD is the backpacker hostel I stayed in. The room was way too cold for me -- I caught a bad cold, had to buy a jacket and ended up spending my last night in a higher priced hotel nursing my cold.
It did have funny cartoons along its walls and the whole place was themed very tex-mex.
