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We had another long bus journey to get to Rotorua, it took about 6 hours all in all. We had to get on the little mini bus again for about 3 hours but luckily everyone on board smelt like human beings. The first thing we did notice when we arrived in Rotorua was the smell, some places smelt ok but then the smell of rotten eggs suddenly hit you like a brick wall. The whole town is next to a lake called Rotorua lake and the lake is filled with Sulphua from the nearby volcano so thats why it smells so bad. Our hostel is just off the main street and is in a great location. The place itself seems quite good, it has a basement cinema, the largest indoor climbing wall in New Zealand and pretty cheap prices for everything. We arrived pretty late on our first day so we just went to the supermarket and then had a quick look at the main street. We spent most of our evening looking at what activities we wanted to do, I really wanted to do zorbing and we both wanted to do white water rafting but the river we wanted to do the rafting on was closed due to fallen trees so we had to give that a miss.
Next day we got up quite early and jumped on the local bus that headed to where the zorbs were. We didn't really know what the zorbing was going to be like and from a distance the track looked to be quite a let down. Jodie was wasn't quite sure if she was going to do it or not but when we arrived she decided against it. There were 2 different options I could have picked. One was the astronaut and that involved me getting strapped to the zorb and going down a steep straight hill, the other option was for me to go into the zorb unstrapped with a lot of water. The wet track looked much better than the dry one and I had already done the dry one at home so I opted for the zig zag wet track. I got driven up to the top of the hill then had to dive in the zorb head first. I expected the water to be a little warm as it wasn't too hot outside but it wasn't! To get going I had to stand up and walk inside the zorb to push it off its platform, I had planned on running so that I could get as much speed going as possible but me being the dumb ass fell as the ball dropped and I couldn't get back up again to get it going faster! I was still going quick enough though and because the track was so zig zaggy I had absolute no idea where I was or what was coming next. It was a bit like a cross between a water slide and a roller coaster and was quality fun. At the bottom of the track the guys stopped my zorb and then took a load of photos of me looking dizzy and wet. I then had to get myself out of the zorb, which I managed to struggle at and it ended up looking like the zorb was giving birth to me!
As Rotorua is so volcanic they have a lot of boiling mud puddles and lakes so naturally there are a lot of spas around. Our hostel gives discount to pretty much any activity here so we got a good deal on a place called Hells Gate. This is the largest Spa in Rotorua but the main reason we wanted to go was because they also have a big geothermic active park. When we first got up to Hells Gate we first done the walk around the park. They have massive ponds, mud baths, boiling mud, mud volcano and the Southern Hemisphere's largest boiling waterfall (which really wasn't that impressive). We got a map of the route to take and got a description on the various lakes and mud ponds. The native Maouri used to use all these lakes as there baths and as a way to heal after battles so the map also gave us a big run down on what it used to be like and what everything was used for. SOme of the lakes were really impressive and were steaming and hissing loads but the best bit was a good sized cliff they had. The whole thing was steaming, the water/mud at the bottom was boiling, hissing and steaming and the entire cliff was also steaming. After our walk we got shown to our own little private mud baths. Because the mud is so acidic we were only allowed to be in there for 20 minutes tops as it can be bad for your health if your in any longer. The mud baths were good and hot but felt a bit weird as while we were in it it started to rain so our body was boiling and our heads were cold, bit unusual. After our 20 minutes were up we had to get a shower before being allowed into the natural hot springs. We spent about an hour in here and believe me they are not called hot springs for nothing. They had 2 big pools, one of which felt a lot hotter than the other but we later found out that it was only 1 degrees different. Everyone could only handle the hotter pool for about 10 minutes straight so everyone was in the cool one, it was still boiling though but it was really nice. After we had finished being boiled we headed out and got the shuttle back down to Rotorua. We each had a few showers afterwards but we couldn't get the smell of rotten eggs out of our skin. Ivan, the guy behind the check in desk then told us that it stays with you for about 30 hours so we had no choice but to put up with it, it was minging!
We had planned on doing the white water rafting today but trees had fallen into the river so the one we wanted to do had been cancelled. Its not really a problem as there are loads of places to do white water rafting over here so we are just going to wait until we get to the south island to do it. Instead we took a walk around the Rotorua lake and a park they have here. The lake is the biggest sulphar lake in the Southern Hemisphere and by God does it smell in places! They have a trail that goes all around it and takes you to the most active geothermic places of the lake. There are a load of mud puddles and water puddles that are boiling away and you can see the lake steaming loads on the other side so you get quite good views. When you get to the big lakes they have signs up everywhere that tell you about the history of it and that they had to close it off when the Maori used it as a bath and kept fainting in it and drowned due to the gases. After the lake we took a walk over to the park (have no idea what it was called) and this is also very geothermic active. They have more ponds and mud volcanoes that are bubbling and letting out the worst smell imaginable but they are really good to see. The best bit though was the river that flowed through the park. They have made a little cut off from the river that the water flows into and you can stop here and sit with your feet in the water. The water is just like a natural hot spring, it is boiling due to the volcano so it was a nice place to chill after 3 hours of walking.
Tomorrow we have a 2 hour bus journey up to Whakatane and are staying there for 3 nights. We have a day trip planned to the White Island which is a active volcano so hopefully that should be good. Rotorua has been really nice, the town is a really nice chilled out place and there is a lot of extreme sport type of activities to do.
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