Rotten Rotorua, (just the smell)
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| The Boiling Lake |
Rotoura is most famous for its eggy smell, and you guys are lucky you didn't have to put up with Andrew making farting jokes at your expense at every opportune moment. Many Rotorurian's are no longer under the illusion that their famed eggy smell comes from the sulfur being produced by the volcanic activity and the local pools, but are utterly convinced of my jet powering abilities. Thanks Andrew. (oddly there was a newspaper clipping in our accommodation implying that the smell was an aphrodisiac to men... Lucky chickens...)
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| A Redwood Trunk |
Nonetheless, Rotorua was a lovely town to visit, we spent a few hours viewing the smelly swampy areas (sulfur bay), and all the beautiful wild life and birds there keeping their little leggy peggies warm in the pools and the nearby lake.
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| The Eerie Dead Lakes |
The next day we went to a beautiful place called the Redwoods, with these stunning redwood trees that towered over us. The trees were redder then Andrew's beard. I had never really noticed or thought much of the colour (sulfur pool) pale green before, to me it was always a bit wishy washy, but upon the back drop of the dark red almost mahogany trees it really held its own. It formed almost ghostly pools of water that a lot of dead things were held within. Could be a good place for a horror movie, in fact I think one of the LOTR movies had peoples faces under water like that. Quite serene and eerie.
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| Olivia at the exit of the Waitomo Caves, we couldn't take photos inside |
Our best day and Andrews birthday was the day we visited Hobbiton and the Waitomo caves. We got up super early, 6am to catch our bus at 6.30am to the caves. The caves were about 2 hours drive from Rotorua through all this beautiful scenery. We had a quick 45 minute tour and boat ride through the caves. The special thing about these caves was the glowworms that lived in the caves, or should I say glow maggots. As we found out glowworms are basically glow maggots. They are a hench mosquito fly's offspring that are in the larvae stage for about 9 months. They are stuck on the ceiling of caves and they have like spider web lines that are just vertical strings from their homes that catches and paralyses their prey (those who fly directly into the stringy things). The larvae then reel in their catch like a fisher man (or a boy sucking up noodles) and cast out another line. They can have up to 20 lines per maggot. And apparently their glowybottoms are to attract the prey towards them, like in A Bugs Life when the two flies look towards the light and gravitate towards it saying, 'it's so beautiful man.' So that's any romantic notion of glowworms gone for me now they are like maggot spiders. They did look stunning though, like a starry night, gleaming all their different colours. Sadly though after they enter their cocoon, to become the hench, hulk like mosquitoes minus the green, their mouths are so weak they cannot eat, and their adult life is only 3-5 days, in which they have to lay eggs, not get eaten by other larvae and die.
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| A Hobbit Baker House |
Sometimes in life it feels like we're just rushing to the end, rushing to grow up, rushing to buy a house, have a career, buy a big car. Ultimately we miss the main part, all the eating! Remember eat cakes not bugs.
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| Us at Bag End |
The second part of our day was Hobbiton, ahh we were giddy with excitement. We pulled up to the entrance to Hobbiton the LOTR music freshly played in our ears. Ready for our breath taking adventure. We entered through the hedgerow where Martin Freeman yelled as Bilbo, 'I'm going on an adventure!' We retraced his steps around the shire, looking in on all his neighbors, all these beautiful round doors, chimneys still smoking, vegetable patches still growing, the washing all hung out. We saw the baker, the fisherman, the painter, the cheesemonger and the local drunkard as we scaled our way to the top of hill. We did see, Bilbo's house, all the flowers planted outside, big round green door. His house was the largest in the shire, all the houses were built to different heights in order to add perspective, although the landscape was almost completely untouched. I touched Bilbo's mail box, it still worked. Then, we made our way to the pub, the Green Dragon as seen in the films. But this one was the real size, well rather we fitted inside. They offered us a free beer or cider, brewed especially for the site, and it was delicious. I've never had cider so nice, it must have been the nectar of the gods.
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| The Green Dragon |
Then we started the long ride home, and were too tired after our day out nearly 13 hours on the go, so got home and relaxed, it rained pretty solidly the next day so we didn't venture out much.
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| An eerie lake shrouded in steam |
Our final morning before heading to
Auckland consisted of a park called Kuirau Park where there is a lot of geothermal activity. Most of it consisted of steaming holes and fart gas. But there was a really amazing lake which was steaming as if it was constantly on the boil. The steam came of making an odd ambiance much like the aforementioned horror movie. It was a really amazing thing despite the eggy smell. From there we moved on to
Auckland to continue our journey to the
Americas.
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| Olivia being somewhat Italian in the steam |
see ya x
What Next?
- We have obviously left for Auckland now, have a look at what we're up to on Instagram here
- Have a look inside the glowworm caves in this interactive video from the national geographic here
- Check out our other Pacific places here
- Check out our Asian Adventures here
- Check out our time in Europe here
- Go buy a ticket and come to this fantastic country!
- Have a Hobbit and Lord of the Rings binge to see this beautiful country in a fantastical way
- See where is next here
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