On our way to Rotorua we stopped half way at Arapuni Suspension Bridge. It was a little bit of a nightmare finding the car parking for the walk to the bridge. However, once we were parked, the bridge was very impressive. The bridge was built to give access to the workers from the nearby town to the Arapuni Power station during its construction and crosses the Waikato River. The views were stunning and once we reached the other side we realised we should have been walking a metre apart from each other as we crossed. Whoops.

We carried on driving to Rotorua and stayed at Rotorua Family Holiday Park. We had seen a deal on a really helpful app called ‘Campmate’ that gave us the site cheaper and with internet included, the guy was nice enough to give us that deal for 2 nights and also gave us so much information on free activities to do around Rotorua and Taupo. Super helpful.

Our first stop in Rotorua was Kuirau geothermal park. We had come to Rotorua to see the smelly eggy (because of the sulphur) geothermal activity so we wanted to see it as soon as possible. A few thoughts early on. 1) The smell of sulphur wasn’t as bad as I expected 2) The geothermal activity was way cooler and more frequent that we thought it would be. Kuirau Park is free to walk around and is full of smoking holes in the ground, lakes and mud pools. There is some pretty impressive steam and heat being kicked out at some of them. We were told that there are hot foot pools in the park where you could soak your feet however, the first one was pretty cold and the second one was nothing special. We spent about an hour here walking around and enjoying the coolness/hotness.

It had been a lovely blue sky day so we decided to go for another of the free activities we had been told about even though it was already getting late. We drove through town to go and see the blue and green lakes (Lake Tikitapu and Lake Rotokakahi). Apparently they are best seen on good weather days as their colours are more prominent. By the time we arrived at the carpark, that would give us access to both of the lakes, it was already about 5:30pm so we knew we would have to rush. We didn’t see a single other person during our 2 hours walking around the area. It was very peaceful at the lakes but blue lake wasn’t massively blue and green lake was also blue. We were disappointed with the colours to be honest. Also, we walked down to ‘green’ lake to get some photos, but we couldn’t actually see the lake through all the shrubbery. Turns out the nearest picnic spot on that lake was a 11km walk. As we were heading back to Maverick the dusk turned into darkness. At this point we were walking through dense tall trees so were pretty grateful to get back to the car. I will admit that we picked up a dominos pizza, as it was too late to cook. BUT! over here you can get a large pizza for around $6 (£3.50). Australia had the same deals. I just don’t see why we can’t have good deals like that! It is officially the only thing that is cheaper here.

Blue lake:

Green lake (also blue):

The next morning we had a lie in. We had been gifted 2Gb of wifi so needed to write some blogs, upload some photos and catch up with banking. Boring really! Simon desperately needed a haircut. He had developed the name ‘Elvis’ due to the long side burns and mop on his head. We went into town so he could attend to his fro. Lets say he is looking far more groomed now, less like Elvis, but a bit more like Olly Murs.

We were told about a local Maori village on the lakeside in Rotorua so decided to head down there to see what it was all about. Ohinemutu has a Anglican Church, Tama-te-kapua meeting house, a local handcrafts shop and quite a lot of geothermal activity going on. We spent a good 30 minutes wandering around here admiring the buildings. Definitely a magical little spot we wouldn’t have known about if it wasn’t for the guy at the holiday park.

From here we walked along the lakeside, enjoying the colours of the water. Sometimes milky due to the sulphur in the water and other times crystal clear with turquoise areas. This walk made for some very pretty photos as you will see!

We walked back through Government Gardens and headed to our last of the 3 Middle Earth Trilogy tours. We were heading to Te Puia for a day and night experience (Te Ra and Te Po). This involved a guided tour around the site which was the land of the Te Arawa tribe followed by a Maori welcome ceremony, cultural show and a hangai dinner. On our tour we saw geysers, mud pools, attempted to see a brown kiwi,  walked through the Maori Arts and Crafts institute and saw the beautiful architecture of the Te Puia Pa (fortified village). The whole of our tour was conducted by a descendent of the Te Arawa tribe who still lived in the Maori village that backs onto the Te Puia site. We learnt about traditional customs, learnt how the famous New Zealand silver fern is used as not only an offering of peace, but also to reflect light from the moon to guide the way at night, and so many other interesting things. I won’t go on about them all here as I know so many of you will want to experience this for yourselves in the future. A highlight was seeing the Pohutu geyser (the largest in the Southern Hemisphere). This geyser erupts once an hour or so, but will erupt for about 20 minutes at a time. This just completely blew my mind. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much pressure there was built up under the earth for a geyser to erupt so powerfully for so long. Super impressive.

It was really interesting to learn about how the European settling caused an influx of Western diseases to kill a large percentage of the Maori people. Skills are passed down through generations such as: navigation, weaving, dancing, singing, canoe building, woodwork etc. and when so many Maori people died these skills started to become lost. At Te Puia they have set up an institute of Maori Arts and Crafts which is designed to keep these important cultural skills alive. We had the chance to look at the woodcarving centre (where only men can learn) and also in the weaving centre. The pieces of art we saw were unbelievable. So beautiful.

It was time for the evening entertainment which began with a traditional welcoming ceremony (Powhiri). This ceremony would allow us to enter the Marae and is designed to challenge the guests intentions, usually presenting a warrior to come forward and present a silver fern as a peace offering. We were allowed in and were welcomed by a speech, singing and our leader (a German guy) pressed noses with the chief (hongi). After this we enjoyed so many different Maori cultural performances including the Haka, singing and dancing and Poi (swinging of tied weights). It was amazing to see this side to the Maori culture and we both had a brilliant time. Our evening ended with a traditional Hangi dinner, which is where the dinner is cooked underground using hot rocks. We had lamb, chicken, pork, roast vegetables and so many other delicious foods. It was so tasty I think we both had 3 plates. We walked down to the Pohutu geyser for another look and hopefully to see the geyser actually erupting and were really fortunate as she put on an amazing show. We had a hot chocolate and that was the end of the night. It all went so fast. I would definitely recommend doing a cultural experience if you come to New Zealand. The people here are so friendly and they are so proud of their history and origins. We mainly took videos in the evening so sorry for the lack of photos.

We went back to our campsite very satisfied with our time in Rotorua. It’s the first place in New Zealand that I said I would live, despite the smell. Simon doesn’t agree and quite a few people since have told us its a lie that you ever get used to the smell. You don’t apparently. I just loved the area and how full of cool science it was. I wished we’d spent a little more time here. We had one more very eggy smelly geothermal experience the next morning which I will save for the next blog.