In Roto, nobody can hear you scream

  Rotorua, New Zealand
Friday, February 9, 2007

A short trip up the "motorway" brough Sam and I to Rotorua, our last destination before heading back to Auckland for the start of our journey home. Rotorua is famous for smelling awful due to the large amounts of hydrogen sulphide released by the geothermal activity in the area. Indeed the town is known by many New Zealanders as "Rottenrua", however we couldnt really smell anything overly pungent. In hindsight there is a fair chance that either the musk Sam and I had developed over the course of two and a half months of living out a bag may have been covering the smell or Rotorua had an undeserved reputation. I like to think that maybe the second option is the correct one. Anyway, I digress massively. We parked up at our latest campervan stop with Sam again managing to endanger the lives of others with his driving. Having stuck with whichever vehicle Kate Clarke was driving for the journey up to Rotorua (the Bay of Islands incident was still burnt into my retinas), Kate, Jess and myself were able to witness the full horror of an Aggers and Sam combination in the campervan as they decided to play with a rather large rock whilst trying to park the van. Having turned into the site, Sam had taken the angle so tightly that the back left wheel of the campervan tried to roll up and over one of the football sized rocks marking the border of our bay. In a funny kind of way I was almost impressed as Sam had managed to turn the van at such an angle, that the rock had gone between the release valve for the waste pipe and the back wheel - a space that was indeed no bigger than a football. This pinpoint disaster was made slightly more hilarious by the added twist that Sam attempted to drive over the rock twice, and, unaware of its presence, the second attempt releasing the waste valve and sprayed dirty dishwater across a wide area. Quickly Kate and I gathered ourselves having burst into fits of laughter and a combination of my running at the van waving and Kate honking the horn a lot stopped Sam from attempting a third suicidal manouver. Having finally got the van into the spot more safely, we set about parking the car and pitching the tent. At this point I would like to point out that later the same day, following a few glasses of wine, Aggers decided to state that "in hindsight maybe I should have warned you about that rock as we were pulling in", which somewhat incriminated herself and absolved Sam of some of the blame. However, once again we'd managed to nearly kill one of the group and live to tell the tale so what harm has really been done eh??


The same day we decided to try and be more proactive in deciding what we wanted to do, so we headed off to the Gondola and Luge rides up the side of Mount Ngongotaha (try saying that after a glass or two of wine!). The gondola ride up to the luge track took the form of a large glass capsule in which you could sit and gradually gain a more and more impressive view of Lake Rotorua and the surrounding area as it rose up the hillside.  Having reached the luge track, we took it upon ourselves to pay for two rides each and then attempted to find some sort of crash helmet that fit. Jess, having a seemingly awkwardly sized head decided to play dice with the devil and eventually picked a helmet, stuck it on her head and just hoped for the best. The luge at Rotorua is not a metal tray you lie on as is seen in the Winter Olympics, but instead, is a plastic tray with a moulded seat attached and 4 wheels. Acceleration is handled by our good friend gravity and braking is controlled by the equally lovely body mass and a bit of rubber stuck to the front wheel. The luge tracks are split into a scenic/beginners route, an intermediate route and an advanced route. With clearly all 5 of us being anything but advanced, our first run was down the scenic route. Everybody reached the bottom safely, having enjoyed a nice cruise along in the scenic track and we decided the intermediate track was worth a go. Having taken the ski lifts back up and nearly lost Jess as she decided to jump off her lift and run away from it rather than to the side, we set off on our second run. Now, some of you may know that I dont drive and what happened halfway down the intermediate course seems to back up the calls by some that I simply shouldnt bother. Myself being of larger mass than the other four decided that I would use this to my advantage and pick up speed where others such as Jess who weighs next to nothing, would find it difficult. Halfway down the run we came to a gentle curve through the trees and I saw my chance to go. Having hit maybe 25mph, Aggers and a sharp corner suddenly appeared and I decided to try and over take her on the outside. All was going well until the sheer speed I was travelling at whilst trying to turn at 90 degrees lifted me up onto my two right wheel as I hurtled around the outside of Aggers. It was at this point I looked to my right to discover that the Redwood had disappeared and I was infact about a foot from going flying over the edge of the mountain and probably into an early grave some 300 feet below. Thankfully the two wheels stuck to the ground long enough for me to finish the corner, overtake Aggers and hurtle off towards my next target - Kate Clarke, in what, to many onlookers must have looked like a manouver worthy of Fernando Alonso. Having nearly killed myself, we decided to head back to the campervan via an ice cream shop and treat ourselves to a barbecue, before going to bed to recover from the days exertions.

The next day began with a trip to Hells Gate Geothermal Park, so called because of the scene with which a writer was greeted, when he first arrived in the area back in the late 19th century. The girls decided to go for a bit of pampering and treated themselves to a mud spa whilst Sam and I wandered round the geothermal park (well, lets be honest, Sam didnt really want to lie in mud and i'm brown enough as it is). Having expected much the same as we had seen in Taupo, we were pleasantly surprised by just how spectacular the park was. Pools of water of varying temperatures and mineral content dotted the landscape, with different colours being created by the different minerals within each pool. Having walked around the park, the final pool was a cool 60 degrees and was heavily sulphurous meaning that when we put our hands in it you could barely feel the water touching you. Following that bombshell of tourist wonder and the return of the girls, now completely exfoliated and with stinging eyes where they had gotten mud in them, we headed for the Kiwi Encounter on the other side of town. The Kiwi Encounter is a tour of a Kiwi support centre, where the birds are bred and helped to develop before being released back into the wild. Our tour guide was either schizophrenic or related to Eva from Sydney, but either way, gave a thoroughly entertaining tour of the facilities. We returned to the building later that evening to tour the Rainbow Springs, which are a collection of pools and water features lit up with different coloured lights. The most entertaining point of our walk around the area came when we decided to venture up a dark staircase to what we thought was an empty cage. As I was walking past the cage, the Peahen, which up until this point had kept quiet, decided to let out a load shriek which nearly gave me a heart attack and resulted in me swearing loudly enough for Aggers to hear my comment some 50 yards away.

Our final moment of madness came the following day when we decided to go zorbing. For those of you not in the know, Zorbing involves climbing into a small plastic ball suspended inside a larger plastic ball by hundreds of pieces of elastic and then being pushed down a steep slope. As an added incentive, two buckets of freezing cold water were added to your capsule before you are pushed, resulting in you getting soaked beyond belief. Sam and I both had a go at a straight run and then a zig-zag run down the hill, whilst the girls opted to climb into a zorb together and roll down the hill. Zorbing is one of the most exhilarating experiences youll ever have, as you lose all sense of direction and it is seemingly impossible to injure yourself. That afternoon we headed into central Rotorua where Kate Clarke, Jess and I spent a pleasant afternoon having a drink in one of the few pubs whilst Aggers and Sam travelled out to Whakarewarewa to visit the geysers. This was followed by a trip out into to town for a meal and a drink in honour of the impending departure of Sam and I the following morning (I think the girls saw it as a celebration of finally having gotten rid of us). Having returned to the holiday park, we settled down for our last night in the campervan. We headed back to Auckland the following day, via the town of Miramira, also known as Hobbiton. Whilst the town had pretty much nothing of interest in it, the drive there did take us through a small town which can only be described as crazy. The entire town appeared to be toy obsessed, with a giant toy castle on the outskirts and an i-site in a giant metal dog (which incidentally had a giant metal cat next to it as you do!). We rounded off the day with dinner with my cousin Alka in the village before turning in for the night and catching our flight back to the UK the following lunchtime.

So, were finished and now back in the cold United Kingdom but we will have one more entry within the next week or two as a kind of "Best of" final entry so make sure you check back soon. Actually, i'm going to be honest, Jess made so many silly comments that Sam and I couldnt fit them all in our blog and decided to dedicate a whole entry to the stupid things that happened on our trip so expect comments and photos soon!