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Hello again all. We've been slowed down this week by tiredness and the onset of the cold (not the weather the illness - man flu to some) which thankfully, at least so far, hasn't lead to any swine flu drama! Imagine that! The morning after the All Blacks game, we got up and went to visit the Weta Cave - the museum for the Weta workshop, the guys who made Lord of the Rings and a whole load of other flicks. This was a cool wee museum filled with film props and stuff to geek over, we got to see a life sized Gollum and Uruk-hai and got to chat with some of the people who worked on the film and who were just starting work on the hobbit, and seemingly very excited about it. We were geeking it up and loved it. We just spent that night on Skype with the folks and recovering from the rugby from the night before.
The next day we went to the New Zealand national museum - Te Papa which really is a wonderful place, it had fantastic natural history sections including the colossal squid, caught a few years back, whale skeletons and all kinds of interesting earth sciences and an earthquake simulator. I even heard some little kid of about 10 talking about lahars (kids are so well educated about that kind of thing here). We spent an entire day at this museum and didn't even see it all. Both agree it's the best museum we've ever been to, and we've been to a few on this trip cos they're free!
The next day was wet and rainy but we took a drive out of the city to an area called Lower Hut where we found Toomath Street, a pretty cool find for Claire, although one of the street signs had stickers stuck all over it, we got the token photographs as we did back in Sydney on Moore Street. Why not! Afterwards we went to visit the city observatory but unfortunately it was closed so we had a lookout over the city views and the city cable car. This was about the time the man flu made it's mark so the rest of that day fell away unfortunately.
After our time in Wellington we drove for 5 hours to Taupo. The drive here was nothing special until we reached the spectacular Desert Road which runs along side 3 huge volcanoes. The first, Mt Ruapehu suddenly appeared huge and daunting and totally covered in snow(which we hope to be snowboarding on soon enough), then we caught a glimpse of Mt Ngauruhoe (na-ra-ho-ee) the single vented, perfectly symmetrical volcano that was used as Mount Doom in the LOTR films. From this point there was quite a lot of veering across lanes cos we couldn't take our eyes off the views. Good job New Zealand is so sparsely populated or there'd be an unfortunate amount of road accidents caused by scenery! The road here went from forested to mostly barren the closer we got to the volcanoes as the ground became more inhospitable. Just before this area we'd been driving through green field and farms and now we were surrounded by dry scrubs and rocks, a really weird and swift change, but pretty cool to losers like us! We arrived in Taupo, the town which sits beside Lake Taupo. The lake is the size of Singapore and is actually a volcanic caldera now filled with water. We checked into our hostel and decided to take a whiz down to the lakeside to watch the sunset. This was striking, the reddy pink sky over the beautifully still lake while hitting the volcanoes in the background made a lovely sight.
Taupo is apparently the skydiving capital of the world, but alas no more jumping out of a plane for us (boo) so instead we had a day of sight seeing. Firstly by visiting Huka falls, where Lake Taupo drains out of a gap of only a few metres wide creating active rapids and a big waterfall. Next stop Aratiatia rapids where they release the water from behind the dam every few hours to produce power while creating a pretty cool sight of huge torrents of water gushing downstream all at once. We timed our arrival with the dam opening so we've got some cool before and after photos of still ponds then white water rapids.
We visited Wairakei Thermal Valley next where we got our first glimpse of geothermal activity with small vents and steam everywhere. After a quick lunch and we went back out to an area called the Craters of the Moon where there was more geothermal action with big craters and mud holes spread around the park. I'm sure you can imagine how much we loved it. Afterwards we visited a place called the Honey Hive, where we got to see bee hives, taste honey and learn about the famous manuka honey (a random trip, but hey it was free). We also got the most delicious ice cream here - probably the best ice cream we have had all trip.
That night we got back to a fully decorated hostel ready to celebrate Christmas. As it was 25th June, 6 months after Christmas, its cold and midwinter, and since Christmas is hot and sunny here the owner decided to celebrate Christmas in a proper Christmas scene, mainly for those travellers who are away for a year or 2 to still feel a proper Christmas feeling. There was Christmas music playing, a Christmas tree and tinsel everywhere. We got free beers, free soup, free hot dogs and free turkey, spuds, carrots and gravy - free Christmas dinner - get in. After a while we heard a bell ringing and Mr Claus himself came in all ho ho ho-ing. We all had to sit on Santa's lap and got a pressie off him. What a random, unexpected but fun night. And weirdly, it actually felt kind of Christmassy! Just surreal.
Next stop is Rotorua - the town you can smell before you see. The town smells of rotten eggs due to the amount of sulphur in the air, again from geothermal activity so we're happy with that, and some people say you never get used to it, but I don't think its too bad actually. Since we got here the weather taken made a turn for the worse and has prevented us from doing a lot. We took a trip to Wai-o-tapu thermal valley which has a whole host of geothermal activity. We watched Lady Knoxx Geyser erupt, saw bubbling mud pools, spectacular colours of rocks, lime green water, steaming craters, bubbling streams, bright yellow sulphur mounds, and the famous champagne pools. The colours here were fascinating and us geography geeks spent a lot of time ooo-ing and ah-ing at the formations and wonderful colours all over the park. The photos don't even do the place justice.
We spent most of yesterday in a Rotorua hostel taking it easy as we have a busy few weeks ahead of us. Oh and also as it literally hadn't stopped raining all day. Though we did have a nice relaxing evening in the Polynesian Spa, a two hour dip in some naturally heated outdoor spa pools from temperatures 38 to 42 degrees. And only $20 each There's something about sitting neck deep in a hot pool with fat rain hitting you in the face! These rainy days, they ain't so bad.
We've now taken a drive back down south a bit to Tongariro National Park where we hope the weather will be kind enough to allow us to try our hand at some snowboarding. The reason we wanted to do it here is cos we can be on Mt Ruapehu, an active volcano, and with any luck there'll be a minor eruption for us to gawp at when we taking a break from boarding! If you don't hear from us by the weekend, check for recent volcanic eruptions in New Zealand!
Lots of Love
Claire and Chris.
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