Sorry its a little late but the travels continue.
The next day I headed out on a short bus ride to Rotorua,
known for its geothermal activity. The town smells TERRIBLY of sulfur. I don’t
know how people live there. A pizza sounded really good so I got a $5 Dominoes
pizza and managed to eat it all by myself (oops). It was still raining, but I
did my best to walk around a little bit.
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| Hot Springs |
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| more hot springs |
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| Some geothermal activity with a rainbow in the background (look at the trees). |
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| They had a floating Rotorua thing. It looked fairly new so the plants hadn't really grown in yet. |
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That night I did a Maori cultural experience.
The Maori are the indigenous people here and their culture is really integrated
into society. They fought really hard when the Europeans came and earned equal
rights. The Maori language is everywhere and is still a thriving spoken
language as here. This cultural experience is an evening devoted to their
history and get a feel for what their villages feel/felt like.
Other than the dolphins, it was probably one of the coolest
things I did during my travels. You start off with the Maori introduction between
tribes which is one of the craziest things ever. Their traditional facial
expression includes tongues sticking out and eyes bulging. It’s pretty
impressive when you see them do it. Then they have different stations
explaining their carving techniques, the history of their facial tattoos
(tattoos are REALLY common here because of that), war training techniques and
weaving. I’m glad I did it more towards the end because it really tied in all
the history I had already learned. They then did a show for us with traditional
songs and dances, including the Haka. Earlier they had taught us how to do it,
but it was really impressive to see the pros do it. For those of you who don’t
know, the Haka has become famous because the All Blacks (NZ Rugby team) do the
Haka before every game, as they used to do it to prepare for battle.
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| Traditional Maori attire. The women have tattoos on their chin and the men have them covering their whole face. |
We were then fed a feast cooked in the ground using all the
geothermal heat, called a hangi. I ate WAY too much food, but it was so amazing. The only thing
I didn’t like were the potatoes because they tasted very strongly of the sulfur
from the ground. We then had an absolutely HYSTERICAL bus ride home and it hurt
to laugh so hard with such a full stomach. Our driver was a riot and had each
country on the bus pick a song to sing. Then he started singing “She’ll be
coming round the mountain” as he started into a roundabout and continued around
the roundabout until the song was over. It reminded me of my dad doing the same
thing when we were in Paris. Then he had us sing the wheels on the bus and
proceeded to do everything the song indicated, including honking the entire way
down a street around 10pm.
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| Pulling our dinner out of the ground. |
The next morning I went to Wai-o-tapu Thermal Area. I met an
American lady on the bus and also ran into an Aussie I had met the night
before. First we went to see a geyser, but were really disappointed when we saw
they triggered the geyser. The American kept talking about how much better
Yellowstone is and now I really want to go even more. The rest of the park
wasn’t as exciting as I had expected but there were some pretty cool colors
here and there. Some of the trees were red or yellow from the sulfur covering them which
was pretty cool. I came back completely exhausted for some reason and took a
nap.
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| mud pools. They made such fun noises |
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| Red on the hillsides from the minerals |
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| The trees were just coated in yellow |
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| This was the craziest color green and the picture doesn't do it justice. Tilt your screen until its neon and then you are close to the right color. |
Then I headed to the Redwoods per a recommendation from a
yacht designer I had talked to. It was suggested I take a bike for the bike
trails. Was that an experience or what? I’ve never really driven a bike on
roads before and throw in traffic laws I’m not used to and I was shocked I made
it to the redwoods in one piece. Already exhausted when I got there, I ended up
walking my bike up some massive hills to the bike trails. I ended up running
into the Australian guy again crazily enough, but he was heading out of the
park. I figured I should go easy on my knees and only stick to the easy trails
(also the bike I rented wasn’t equipped for anything more), but about 15
seconds into the trail I chose I thought there was no way this was an easy
trail. I was expecting a nice stroll through the woods, but no, this was a
proper mountain biking trail with hills and curves. I’m convinced I’m on the
wrong trail, worried about the bike staying in one piece and wondering what I
got myself into. Everywhere in NZ has been incredibly well marked and this one
the one park that wasn’t. I hit a fork in the road and a sign said “trail
continues” and then didn’t tell me which way to go (and these were one way
trails). Fortunately a runner was coming through and directed me. About 20
seconds later, he was out of sight, which tells you how slow I was going on the
bike.
I then got onto a part of the trail that was even more
difficult and I thought for sure I was going to destroy the bike. I came out on
a trail completely lost, asked for directions and got sent the wrong way, but
eventually, I made it home. I was completely exhausted, my butt was sore, but
my knees probably had a good workout and it was a good experience.
The next day I went to the Rotorua museum, which was an old
geothermal bathhouse. It was pretty cool and they had this show on the volcanic
history in the area and the seats and everything shook along with it. There was
also a really neat nature photography exhibit that I could have looked at for
forever. I spent the afternoon shopping for pants for my job interview the next
day. It proved incredibly difficult, but just when I was about to give up, I
peaked around a corner by my hostel and found a store called Just Jeans.
JACKPOT (I had decided I wanted black jeans). Then I caught the bus out of
town.
