Feeling Hot, Hot, Hot: Rotorua Day 1

We caught a shuttle to the airport at 7:20 and made it there in plenty of time for our flight…we got onto the plane with all of our luggage, thanks to some help from the ticket agent, who forgave a few extra pounds. Nice lady! While we were waiting for our plane, Gretchen spotted a girl with Dunkin’ Donuts Munchkins, and I ran off to find some for us. Get this, everybody: not only do they have Munchkins in NZ, they have 6 varieties! Man, this is the greatest country.

We boarded our flight through Gate 42, which was really just a hole in the fence. Gretchen was reminded of the Long Beach, CA, airport. There was no x-ray screening before we got on – it was interesting to board a flight in a country that’s not currently under siege. The plane was one of those tiny propeller jobs, so it was easy to see why the amount of luggage allowed was so limited. When I got on the plane, I learned another New Zealand word: apparently, “seat 1F” is Kiwi for “copilot seat.” I was close enough to the cockpit to touch the buttons if I’d wanted to (I didn’t) and for the pilots to point out the sights as we went along. The flight was only about 30 minutes long.

We smelled Rotorua from the air before we landed.

We smelled Rotorua from the air before we landed. The town is situated on a fissure in the Earth’s crust, so there is a lot of geothermal activity, and the air smelled strongly of sulfur. We rented a car, and this time I drove. Fun! We dropped our bags off at the hotel and headed out to the sights right away. First we visited the Wairangu geothermal valley, which was formed in the late 1800s after Mt. Tarawera erupted. Even though only about 120 years have passed since the eruption, the place is full of palm trees and ferns surrounding steaming, swirling lakes. After Wairangu, we headed to Wai-O-Tapu, which is farther down the road and much older. Wai-O-Tapu had mud pools, fizzy lakes, and one lake that was absolutely neon green. We’d had more than enough of the sulfur smell by 2:00 so we headed back into town for lunch.

Lunch was at Lime Caffeteria, one of the recommendations in our guidebook. They had wonderful coffee and tea (I loved the Tokyo lime tea – it’s not often you get a beverage that is both hot and refreshing), and the food was great. Gretchen had “The Fish” and I had seafood risotto. Mmm! Oddly, our busperson (I’m not trying to be PC – neither of us could tell if it was a guy or girl) told us that he/she has always wanted to visit Washington, D.C. Crazy! He/she also tried to talk politics with us, but we refused, because dammit, we are on vacation! After lunch, we strolled down to the tourist office and made some bookings for activities. It is really convenient, because from that single location you can book tours, dinners, tickets to museums, everything in one spot.

We headed up to the Skyline Skytours gondola, which took us way up above the city for a beautiful view of Lake Rotorua and Mt. Tarawera. At the top of the hill was a terrific activity: the luge! It is not like the Olympic luge; the vehicles are more like gravity-powered go-carts. There were three winding courses to ride: I stuck with the “scenic” route (their nice word for “beginner”) while Gretchen tried the advanced. Luging was absolutely terrific.

After the luge, we checked into the hotel and, I am embarrassed to tell everybody, stayed in for the rest of the night. I had not slept the night before in Auckland, so I took advantage of the quiet in Rotorua to catch up.