12/3/09 Day trip to Rotorua! The first thing we did was bypass the town centre and drive about 30 km further south, where we had been reliably informed there were some free hot springs you can swim in. We turned off the main road onto a gravelly road, and after a bit more of a drive, pulled up into the small parking area. It was very quiet, and seemed quite isolated, which I was pleased about - not very touristy, unlike those in the town centre which have been turned into fancy spas. We followed the path into some woods, walking alongside a small stream which had steam coming off it. After a couple of minutes the stream turned into a waterfall, with a large pool underneath it, and the amount of steam rising up was certainly a sight to behold! I couldn't wait to get in. First of all Dave took some photos and a short video of me in it, and then I got out and took some of Dave, before putting the camera away and joining him. It was like getting into a hot bath, because you had to immerse yourself slowly to get used to the temperature. Once you were in properly, it was incredibly relaxing, and it felt quite surreal to be lying in a steaming, 30 degrees pool of water in the middle of a wood. The heat was so lovely, I could have stayed in there for hours! When I made my way round to the other side of the pool and waterfall, I realised that from this angle I could get some very artistic-looking photos, so I got out, fetched the camera and waded back through the pool to take lots of photos. They came out very well, and I was very pleased with them. While we were in there we noticed that the side of the pool overhung, and underneath it there were lots of candle stubs. That's something I'd have liked to have done, coming back here after dark and having a swim in candlelight!
As we drove away from the hot springs, we found that on the other side of the path, there was a big volcanic lake. We hadn't seen it before because of the thick and high vegetation hiding it from view. It was very green, too green to just be algae, and on the opposite side to us, it was steaming. We found a small path to the edge and admired it for a bit, but weren't tempted to get in for a swim. Someone had obviously been hunting around there recently, because there was a deer's leg right at the edge of the water.
Our next stop was at a big Maori centre, which includes the grounds where the geysers are, as well as bubbling mud pools, a Maori carving workshop, a weaving workshop, a Maori meeting house, and a small 'Kiwi House'. We went to the latter first - it was very dark inside, because of Kiwis being nocternal, but once our eyes got used to the gloom we managed to spot one Kiwi. I was really pleased to have seen one, despite it not being in the wild. Then we carried on to the geysers, stopping at a big mud pool on the way. I wished I could have dipped an experimental toe into a section that wasn't actually bubbling, to see how hot it was, but it was all fenced off. I felt ridiculously pleased to be there, overcome by the novelty you might say (like I had been at the hot springs), because it's nature as I've never seen it before, just so different to Britain! Needless to say, this increased even more once we arrived at the place where the geysers erupt. One geyser was finishing off as we arrived. I took lots of photos, and was impressed at how volcanic the area looked - very yellow in places, due to the chemicals, and with lots of steam rising up from the blowholes. Some of them never erupt into geysers, but the one we were waiting for - the big, famous 'Pohutu' geyser - erupts about 20 times a day.
Another smaller geyser, the Price of Wales' Feather geyser, always erupts a few minutes before Pohutu, so we knew what to look out for. Eventually it began erupting, and then Pohutu did right next to it. I hadn't expected it to come out from where it did - I was busy watching a big blowhole to the right of it instead - and from the angle we were at, they didn't look very separated from each other; so to begin with I wasn't 100% certain whether it was just the climax of the Prince of Wales' Feather one, or the start of the Pohutu. Then of course I realised that it must be the Pohutu, because of the height it went up to! (20-30 metres.)
We walked back a different route, and visited the carving workshop before we left. This is an important training centre for Maoris learning their traditional styles of carving, though we saw a couple of non-Maoris there as well. The sheer intricacy of their work was a sight to behold, and it looked a lot more interesting than the weaving workshop, which we also popped into.
We had some lunch at a Subway in town, and then off we went to the Zorbing centre! Dave wasn't sure about it at first, so I went down by myself; you could go down in a straight line or in a zigzag, and either strapped inside the ball or unstrapped and with some water at the bottom. I chose the water one and to go down in a zigzag, because I'd slide around a lot more and it would be more fun. To get inside, you had to push yourself through a hole in the side, and land in a heap on the bottom. The cold water gave me a shock, but after a few seconds they set my ball off rolling down the hill, and I was so filled with adrenalin I didn't even notice the temperature of the water! It was absolutely brilliant - the zigzagging made sure I was kept thrown around, sliding in the water and bouncing off the walls. The rolling down looks a bit slow on the video, but it certainly didn't feel like it on the inside. I would definitely recommend it to anybody, and I could have gone straight back up and done it again about 10 or more times in a row!
They had let me in for free after their card machine didn't work properly, so although Dave had been convinced to do it by my reaction to it, he decided to leave it for when we came back another day, in case they thought we were just trying to get him in for free as well.

13/3/09 We had planned on going to Taupo today to go skydiving, something we'd both like to do. However, after looking up all the prices, we sadly realised that if we did skydive then we'd probably be sleeping on the streets and living off water for the next couple of weeks before our next installment came through, so we decided not to do it afterall and to go back to Rotorua instead. Although disappointed about not being able to skydive, we'd planned on coming back to Rotorua anyway, to visit the museum and the thermal park in the town centre (as well as for Dave to have his turn at Zorbing), so we felt better than would have otherwise.
We walked round the park in the town centre in the morning, looking at all the thermal activity there. I forgot to say before, but you can tell when you're in or near Rotorua due to the charming sulphurous smell of rotten eggs! There were loads of mud pools, which bubbled a lot more fiercely than the big one by the geysers, and lots of steam. I came across a small erupted-looking bit of concrete on the side of a path, and although you couldn't see anything in it, when you put your head closer to it you could hear water or mud boiling away underneath. It must have been judged safe, because unlike all the other obviously thermal bits, it wasn't fenced off for safety.
After we'd finished looking around and taking photos/videos, we went into the museum. It was really interesting, because Rotorua had become famous for its 'healing waters' in the 19th century, and part of the museum is made up of the old bath house, built in 1908, where all the treatments were carried out for people 'taking the cure'. As well as the old massage rooms and the tiny rooms where the remains of the baths are, there were rooms underneath the building where all the mud treatments were carried out. There was also lots of information about the difficulties they had in building the bath house, the massive importance it had on the fledgling 19th century tourist interest in New Zealand, and about the treatments themselves.
Other galleries were about the massive eruption of Mt. Tarawera (one of the worst natural disasters in NZ history - over 150 people were killed, and entire villages were engulfed), the famous Maori Battalion which fought in WWII, and one with lots of Maori treasures in.
We spent a lot of time at the museum, and after that we went back to the Zorbing place so that Dave could have his turn. He enjoyed it as much as I did, but unfortunately I didn't manage to get a video of him like he had of me, because I didn't see that it was him inside the ball until it had stopped rolling at the bottom.