The Town of Many Smells

When it was time to move on from Taupo, we headed north to a town called Rotorua, which Kent named the “Town of Many Smells.” All around Rotorua, the crust is very thin and the hydrogen sulphide can be smelled throughout the town. Yum! There is a ton of stuff to do there though, and we had a great time. Coincidentally, our visit coincided with a reggae festival called Raggamuffin, so we bought tickets and headed to the all day concert! Great reggae, great weather, what more could we ask for? Well a place to spend the night for one! We had been trying for the past week to find accommodation in or around Rotorua, but because of the festival, everything was booked solid! We drove 15 minutes outside of town, in the dark, to a camp ground, reclined the seats in the Corolla, and tried to catch a few hours of sleep!
While in Rotorua, we visited the world-renowned Polynesian Spa, where they have sulpher pools and mineral pools geothermally heated to different temperatures and supposed to heal physical ailments and sore muscles. The pools are outdoors overlooking Sulpher Bay. We also visited Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland where we saw a (fake) geyser, colored mineral pools (yellow, blue, green, red – from the different minerals dissolved in them), craters, boiling mud, hot springs, and waterfalls. Even though the geyser was induced to erupt, and I was very skeptical to go see it, in the end it was pretty impressive. Later that night, we had plans for a Maori cultural experience. The Maori are the indigenous people of New Zealand. Our group was picked up in a bus and taken to the Tamaki Village. After a warriors’ welcome that was both extraordinary and intimidating, we were led into the village to see how the Maori lived in the 1800’s. Next, we were given a musical dancing performance, and taken to the dining room to eat the hangi (a feast cooked by fire-hot rocks in an underground pit). Everything was delicious and we left with a belly full of food and wine, and knowledge of the Maori people. Before leaving Rotorua, we hit up the luge…a downhill track in which you sit in a little go-kart and hurtle down to the bottom where you catch a ski-lift back up to do it again! Good times!