Kia Ora! (That's a Maori greeting)

Hello again. We're packing up and wanted to update the website before we left Rotorua since we know that we actually have internet access here.

Wednesday, January 4

We had a fairly uneventful drive from the Waitomo Valley to Rotorua. Rotorua is a much larger town and is very busy with tourists. We arrived in town, grabbed a quick lunch and found an internet cafe. We checked into the hotel and luckily there are no wings on this one!!

This area is very much alive with active hot springs. As we drive around, there are steam vents everywhere, and depending on the wind, it can become quite smelly with the odor of sulphur too. After unpacking, we took a quick drive to one of the free access hot springs, Kerosene Creek. It was quite refreshing. We made an unpleasant discovery when we left. The sulphur smell transferred over to us!! We stunk of sulphur! Luckily it washed off of us, but we're not sure if our swimsuits will ever be the same.

We ate an Italian dinner at Pappa Luigi's. The mother (Marion) and father (Jimmy) of the owner were sitting outside and were encouraging us to eat there. After we sat down, they joined us and were quite interested to hear about our trip. Jimmy was once a diver and ran fishing tours on Lake Rotorua, but an injury prevented him from continuing this and he has since retired. They were quite interesting.

We tried to catch some ice cream after dinner, but we missed that since they had just closed. Why do things in a tourist town close down at 9:30?? Since we had our hearts set on ice cream we drove to a Shell station and got some. Yummmm!

Thursday, January 5

On our drive to Rotorua, we called and made arrangements for a helicopter ride to White Island from a town near here called Whakatane. Jimmy yesterday taught us how to pronounce this one (apparently the WH is pronounced as an F). White Island is privately owned and has to be reached either by helicopter or boat. Since it is a very much active volcano, no one stays there long much less lives or works there! We drove to Whakatane and arrived in a brief (thankfully) rain shower. It passed and the trip was still on! We spent just a little over 1.5 hours on the island. It was like being on another planet. We're wondering about our sanity to spend this much money on an activity that requires a gas mask (for parts of the walk) and that could blow up at any minute. Don't worry though, they monitor this volcano very closely and more people have died from landslides than volcanic eruptions here. Next of kin will be glad to know they received no phone calls as a result of our helicopter trip.

The Maori are the native people here. We made arrangements for a cultural show/meal at a "typical" pre-European Maori village. It was very interesting - lots of history and explanations about their customs. In the "olden days" they would rather intimidate their foes with facial expressions and body movements than to actually proceed in battle, so we got quite the show on this. They performed dances and songs and then we had dinner. It was cooked underground in fire bits. A very interesting evening!

Friday, January 6

We started the morning with Zorbing. Basically you climb into a big inflated 2 layer ball. They put some warm water in there and roll you down a big hill. LOTS of fun! We each did a solo Zorb on the zig-zag course and then a tandem Zorb down the straight fast hill. These Kiwi's are crazy. There's even an automated "ball return" like they have in bowling alleys to take the empty Zorbs back up the hill.

We had lunch at the Fat Dog Cafe and then after lunch we did laundry (the vacation can't be ALL fun.).

After laundry, we drove out to Waimangu Volcanic Valley and did a hike. This was a two hour walk through a region of well recorded volcanic activity starting June 10, 1886. We barely (and I mean barely) made the shuttle bus back to the parking lot. We weren't at all excited about doubling our hike!

We had Thai food for dinner where Travis was introduced to "Money Bags" (similar to spring rolls but shaped like little fried money bags).

We took a few small videos at the volcano and while Zorbing:

Logistics

We're staying 3 nights in a regular motel in Rotorua.

If you're a big fan of CBS's The Amazing Race, you might remember Zorbing from Season 5. Zorbing has been described as taking a ride down a hill in a giant hamster ball. Sounds like fun!

Zorbing actually started here in Rotorua and we're just crazy enough to try it.

Rotorua is also the gateway to the most excellent volcano, the White Island Volcano. The volcano is actually located on its own island and we'll be taking a helicopter over to check it out.