Rotorua

I had been to, or through, Rotorua a couple of times before but had not taken the time to do most of the “touristey” attractions. It was one of the preferred major stops on the list for my sister so I figured it was a good opportunity to finally explore the city a bit. Rotorua is the geo-thermal capital of New Zealand. My handy-dandy Lonely Planet guidebook of NZ says it has a “unique egg-ey smell,” which can be translated to “it stinks of sulphur.” But in spite ot the smell, I did appreciate that the place where we spent two nights had a nice natural hot pool, as well as the random hot pools you could stumble on around the city which were great for relaxing while soaking your feet.

We spend the first morning there exploring the city park and the redwood forest. The park offered a variety of mud and steam pools you could view. The forest was a cool, clean-smelling option for later morning that proved to be a nice contrast for getting out of the sun. The forest had excellent trails so we meandered down a few and admired the trees until we were ready to settle under a nice big one by the visitor center for a picnic lunch. The afternoon we spent as any good vacationer does, enjoying the hot pool, cooling off in the regular pool, and a kiwi BBQ for supper.

Steam pool at the park

A nice hot pool in the park where we relaxed for quite awhile

Mmmm, boiling mud

Tree men? Entrance to the Redwood forest

When we were in the planning stages of the trip, we had made an impressive list of activities and sights we wanted to do and see while in Rotorua. But the remainder of our time there was largely devoted to catching up from too long in different countries, relaxing by a lake or in the spa pool, and enjoying cups of coffee. As we prepped to leave, due to the pending storm from Hurricane Pam, we changed our original plans of heading to the Coromandel Peninsula and visited Taupo en route to returning to Taranaki for further exploration of my current stomping grounds in order to avoid the severe weather. 

Blue lake

Green lake

Huka Falls (Lake Taupo)