Rotorua

Time to upload a few more photos, first of the 2 nights/3 days we spent in Rotorua.

First up, a visit to a place I remembered going to when I was a kid: Rainbow Springs, a wildlife sanctuary (including kiwi house).  I don't remember, from childhood, that it was overpriced and a tiny bit dull, but it was -- still, the kids enjoyed themselves enough.  Fortunately, they had thought to add an (educational) log-flume ride, which the kids rode several times.  Oh, this moa's for Margaret:

The gift shop featured dolls that my sister bought from Rotorua when she was a kid, and which I assumed would by now be either illegal or socially unacceptable, but there you have it:

One of the local tribes, in fact, is the custodian of natural hot springs outside of Rotorua, where we spent some of an afternoon.  The temperature ranges from that of a very hot bath, to really too hot to bear -- and is high in minerals, sulphur etc.   Alice suffered from terrible seasonal allergies for the first part of our trip, and Rotorua has (we learnt) some of the worst allergens in the air; but she found the waters very healing.

At Tommy's request especially, the kids went "Zorbing" -- encased in a double-walled giant ball, with a bucket of water thrown inside, and then rolled down a variety of steep hills.  The first time they went together, down the slowest, straight hill:

There were two other tracks -- one that dropped the ball over a small cliff (hidden by trees, for the benefit of watching parents, I think), and another very fast zigzag.  Some highlights from those journeys (taken by the staff of the establishment -- observers weren't allowed to get this close!):

As we left Rotorua on the last day, we spent some hours hiking the route through Waiotapu ("Sacred Waters"), the most active geothermal/volcanic site in the region.  As you'll see from some of the pictures, the kids (Tommy especially!) found the acrid, sulphurous smell too much to take at times.  But it was all weird and often quite beautiful:

Only a video can do justice to the boiling mud.  Alice and Tommy got it into their head to name the various exploding mud pustules after Fox News presenters.  The loud angry one here is Bill O'Reilly:

Our next stop was Napier, in Hawkes Bay wine country, where we hit a bit of a low point.  The entire city was rebuilt in 2 years after the total devastation of an earthquake in 1931 -- and it has become famous for the many beautiful Art Deco structures.  Parts of it remind me of Miami (especially with the palm trees everywhere).  Our tour was a little low-key and earnest, but the kids did well and were interested in the video about the earthquake and reconstruction that we watched.

And then on to Wellington!