Clare Writes:
Rotorua's smoking like the whole town's going to blow! I knew it was the heart of some big geo-thermal area but I wasn't expecting pools of bubbling mud popping up randomly in the local park, and bushes steaming. 'Please keep to the paths' it says - but some of the paths have smoking holes in them too! Bonkers! We came up from Napier via lake Taupo and picnicked at the same spot as on the way down more than a month ago, but this time we stayed in the car - except when we had to ask a Maori woman(?) in the next car to open the lid of our ploughman's relish. Then we stopped at the geo-thermal area at Orakia Korako, which is described as the best example and it was amazing - fault terraces coloured in rainbow hues by different kinds of algae, temperamental geysers, boiling waterfalls etc etc.
Rotorua has a sulphurous smell and everywhere has the heating on full - must be free! I even had a bath last night - but it did smell vaguely strange and I'm sure it wasn't me.

Sheila writes:

We treated ourselves to a hot thermal bath experiecen- we went to the Polynesian Spa which has over 40 different thermal baths. We had access to about to different baths - with different temperatures. All are fed from a native hot spring near Lake Rotorua. The hottest baths nearest the lake have great views over the lake to the volcanic mountains beyond. There's even particles of sulphur in the water making it look slightly opaque!

We had a bit of a scare in Kairua Park (the ordinary town park in Rotorua) when a boiling hot geyser erupted just beside us without warning! Seconds earlier I'd feld vibrations under my feet and noticed water levels changing in two adjacent ponds....mmm... There was a big eruption in the Park in 2003 when cars on the nearest road through town got wrecked by boiling mud and new hot springs erupted in some nearby houses' back yards.

We went to a Maori cultural night at Mitai, just north of Rotorua where we learnt various phrases in Maori, including some parts of the Haka. It included dances, songs and explanation of various customs. The chief was an amazing guy, with astonishing tatoos representing waves in the ocean aound his thighs and buttocks. All the male performers had tatoos of four New Zealand native birds on their faces. We were treated to a superb Hangi (meal cooked for 3 hours in an underground oven) where the main dishes were lamb, chicken and kumara (NZ sweet potato).

We're off to see the tall kauri forests in Northland next.