Boiling Earth
Rotorua, the
geothermal centre of New Zealand, one of the main tourist
attractions, turned out to be a rather short stop on our way. Before
you even get close to the city, you are welcomed by the
unmistakable, ever present odour of sulphur, blown into the air by the
many geothermal hotspots along the highway. The most popular one,
Wai-o-tapu ('holy waters'), charges you around
35$ for the smelly experience. The colorful lakes must be
interesting, but for our taste it was just too much money for
something so focused on artificially drawing tourists.
They put up
Maori style poles and decorations everywhere, which would be a good
thing, if it weren't just for getting more people and money there and
forcing the towns popularity just a bit more (quite small and not soo
remarkable by itself, but with what felt like thousands of rather
pricy hotels and motels lined up everywhere). To keep the tourists'
good mood up, they even 'help' the geyser with some chemicals to
spout off at exactly 10:15 each day.
Long story cut short, for us
it was all a bit too artifical and too smelly.
A bit further along the road, we had our own small (and free) geothermal experience: A hot bath in 'Kerosene creek' a naturally heated river that has carved a little pool in the forest, not too far from the highway. Quite an interesting experience, lounging in a hot pool in the middle of the forest!
Lakes and Mountains
Near sunset at Lake Taupo |
Giants like
Tongariro or its brother peak, Ngauruhoe (starring as 'Mount Doom' in
the Lord of the Rings movies) don't need a lot of color to be
stunning.
They don't seem that high if you are close to them, the plains around them already
being 1000m above sea level, but still, the 1900 /2300m peaks
dominate the views from afar.
Finding the
'Tongariro Crossing' parking lot bursting with cars at our arrival,
we spent the day relaxing on one of the camp sites in nearby
Kaimanawa Forest Park and hoped for better weather and less people at
Christmas Day. Unfortunately it was a lot more cloudy then, we couldn't
even see the lower parts of the mountains from the start of the
track. We heard some stories about the amazing view (you can see both
oceans on a very clear day) and the Emerald lakes up there must be
great to see, not to speak about the exciting experience of walking
next to still active, steaming volcano craters. But it is a ca. 6 hours walk, and
we want to make sure the views are worth the effort. So we will
hopefully find a nice clear day when we are back at the North Island.
For now, it was impressive enough to see them from down below and we,
again, felt like being right in Middle-Earth.
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