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Saturday 7th April
We arrived in Rotorua yesterday and nothing prepared me for the smell. Ok - so we'd been to a geo-thermal park and the smell was very bad there of rotten eggs from all the sulphur and acid in the air. But I hadn't expected it in the middle of the town. Peeeoooooh! Stinky stinky very stinky!
We go to the Maori village in the evening where they formally welcome us in by shouting and waving large sticks at us! Pretty scary stuff. They're quite intimidating and formidable when they chant and make gutteral noises but apparently this is all part of the show! It's very impressive.
Their tatoos are fantastic and I have my picture taken with a particularly large maori man! He's actually quite charming and has a deep booming voice. We wander around their replica village which demonstrates how they would have lived before european settlers arrived.
They then put on a show for us dancing with sticks, poles, poi's (like a pom-pom) which are used as exercises to improve their agility. They perform the haka which is fantastic. We have a traditional maori hangi meal which is like a roast dinner but the food is cooked in the ground.
Sunday 8t April
We drive to a geo-thermal village called Wai O Tapu today to watch the Lady Knoz Geyser go off. Apparently this will happen at 10.15am - I'm intrigued to find out how they know exactly what time it goes off. We arrive to find a man standing next to the geyser with soap powder. He precedes to tell us that the geyser was discovered by prisoners who decided to wash their laundry in the hot pool. Then when they added soap powder to the water, there was a slow bubbling, then a sudden eruption.
Apparently there is an underwater reservoir holding 30,000 litres of water down there and the soap powder clears the cold water sitting on the top to enable the hot water to shoot up with some serious force! It's quite impressive.
We walk around the rest of the geo-thermal area - the landscape is spectacular with mud bubbling away, sulphur pools in extreme yellows and fabulous bright oranges in the water. However, the smell is still dreadful - eugh!
We head over to Hells Gate for a mud bath and sulphur spa in the afternoon. It's not quite what I had expected. The mud pool is literally mud coloured water with a bit of mud slop at the bottom and guess what - it stinks. But we dutifully scoop up the slop and rub it in. Then it's into the sulphur spa where it stinks even more. Ah well - at least it's warm.
We leave there and travel on past Simon's old house and school which is lovely for him to see. There are lots of kiwi orchards around here too. We go to the beach at Whakatane and watch people fishing off the pier and the kids playing in canoe's.
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