Susan's Travel Sagas

11-17-2009

After waking up, I collected all my laundry off the wall heaters, showered, and got dressed. As breakfast had not been offered, only tea or coffee, I made some instant coffee (the only option) with enough for my travel mug. It was really awful. I set off for Waimangu (prebooked), Rotorua’s newest geothermal site. While geothermal activity previously existed there with what were known as the “eighth wonder of the world: in the mid to late  1800s, the “pink and white terraces,”  the whole area was redefined by the eruption of Mt. Tarawera in 1886, The pink and white terraces were destroyed and what was a small lakem Lake Rotomahana, became twenty times larger.

As I had had no breakfast and did not want to spend a half an hour waiting in the café for a cooked breakfast, I bought an egg salad sort of sandwich. My plan was to do the hike about ¾ of the way to the lake, catch the shuttle to the lake, and then take the boat trip around the lake. The woman at the information desk said I could either do the hike that paralleled the road or the “nature hike”. I chose the later and like everything in New Zealand involved climbing straight up a mountain to view a nearby lake and then coming back down. The geothermal sites were interesting, but at the end I was “sweating it” because if I missed the shuttle bus to the lake, I would miss the boat and then would have to wait another hour.

Everything worked out time wise, and I was the only person on the boat, so I had my own personal tour around the lake. Then the bus took me back to the beginning with other hikers. I drove back into Rotorua with the afternoon plan to explore the city.  I walked around, saw a Maori settlement, the Government Gardens, visited to Rotorua Museum and checked out the shops. The museum was in what used to be the bath house and included a visit to the basement to see the plumbing and to the roof to see the views.  There was a movie there that simulated in the theater the ground shaking with a volcanic eruption, a bit unnerving.

Once finished with my activities I sought a place for dinner. I walked up and down the street reading menus and finally settled on an Indian restaurant with a deal on free biryani if one ordered a curry.  The food was ok  (the server told me all the Indian tour groups ate there). Then back to my Rotorua lodgings. No one was around when I got in, so I just went to my room.