Tuesday, April 15th, 2010
Day 4: Rotorua -> Napier
Woke up in the morning freezing. Note to self: Need to be fully clothed when sleeping in the car.
After that rude awakening, Apo and I had brunch at the Fat Dog café in town and used the wireless internet there to book ferry tickets to the South Island on Saturday. After that we had a walk around town checking out the Government Gardens, Lake Rotorua (Rotorua means “Second Lake”), and the local Maori village Ohinemutu (see pictures). The village had regular western housing as well as buildings with very intricate carvings of warriors. What I found most interesting about the village was that they had hot springs coming out of the ground in random areas and it was just part of the normal setting to the locals.
The highlight of today was Wai-O-Tapu (means: Sacred Waters) a thermal park situated south of Rotorua. To enter the park costs 30 bucks, which at first put me off, but I called another nearby park and it seems that they all charge a similar entrance fee.
Wai-O-Tapu is bubbling with geological activity and intense colors are created by the waters mixed with underground chemicals. Walking past the pools and sulfur clouds with the green forest as the background is quite surreal. Hopefully I captured some of that surreality (<-not a word) in the pictures (link on the bottom).
After that we started our drive to Napier passing Lake Taupo and some other beautiful landscapes. New Zealand is really made for road trips; everywhere you pass is just stunning. Also, NZ is much safer to drive at night than Australia where car crashes caused by nocturnal kangaroos or wombats wandering onto the road are commonplace. The only thing you really have to worry about in NZ are the possums that come out at night. A guide at Wai-O-Tapu mentioned that in NZ, they call possums “Nature’s little road bumps.” Hitting a kangaroo or a wombat is much more dangerous than hitting a possum (in Australia there are cases of kangaroos being hit on the road in mid-hop and crashing through the windscreen killing the driver and the passenger).
Why do I bring this up? On the way to Napier from Rotorua, a possum ran in front of my car. I just kept driving straight as usual because there was an incoming car and if I made any sudden motion, I could’ve potentially hit the other car. Needless to say, there was a “bump” under my left front wheel and I sent that possum to possum purgatory.
We got into Napier and booked at the YHA (Youth Hostel Association) there and were surprised to find they had a two person dorm room available at $29 per person (even though they were bunk beds [see pictures] to have your own private room at that price is pretty cheap!).
DT: Brunch 9 + Internet 2.5 + Parking 2 + Ferry Ticket 110 + Ohinemutu 5 + Food 16.75 + Groceries 29 + Wai Tapu 30 + YHA 29 = 224.25
TS: 522.95
DA: 130.74
Spent BIG money today!
No comments:
Post a Comment