Rotorua - Welcome to the city of rotten eggs!
Sometimes, good things start on the wrong foot. In our case, it was Oren's foot. It has been a while since the last time he twisted an ankle, so he decided to do it on the way to the bus to Rotorua. This made Lilya the only one responsible for our time in Rotorua and indeed she was quick to find us a great hostel, with a twist: the main common area has a large window over a big climbing wall. We didn't do much on the first day but on the second day Lilya got up early and went to do a white water rafting in the Kaituna river. It was quite fun, especially the part when you pass through a 7 meter high waterfall. No serious injuries were recorded, and all was documented on a DVD. Lilya also used the time that Oren wasn't able to walk to climb with Aviv, an Israeli guy we met in the hostel. We also met quite a lot of other nice people in this hostel, from all over the world.Rotorua is not only the geothermal capital but also the city that has the highest percentage of Maori people in New Zealand. Oren felt better on the next day and we took the bus to Whakarewarewa. This strange name is actually a Maori village right outside the town. Don't think that this is a long name. Maori names tend to be very long as they squeeze an entire sentence or a full story into one name. The name Whakarewarewa is only a short for the full name that includes 37 letters. The longest name for a Maori village, by the way, is 87 letters long.
We had a fun guided tour there, with a guide who was born in the village and did a true effort to show us her old home town. We saw the hot pool (as hot as 200 degrees!) that the Maori people use to cook their meals inside even today. The visit also included a Maori show (that is performed by local people). This was a real fun to watch. It starts with a Haka – a traditional war dance which includes strange and aggressive movements, scary (yet incredibly funny) faces, while flapping the hands and stomp with the feet. Just don't lough in their faces. In the new New Zealand, the Maori culture has a very important status and the Haka was even adopted by the New Zealand national rugby team – the "All Blacks". They do the Haka before every game in front of the puzzled eyes of their opponents.
The honor guests of the show were a group of people from Tahiti. Since the origin of the Maori people is Polynesia, there was a touching reunion at the end, when the guests got on the stage and performed few songs from the islands, which sounded much like the hippy songs from the 60's.
Most people come to Rotorua to see the geothermal hotspots. At the end of our guided tour we saw a nice gazer on the other side of the fence. In order to see this gazer from close by, you need to pay more than twice to get into the natural reserve on the other side. The Maori people claim that this is their land and that the government stole it from them, but until they can get their land back, they can only watch the gazer from outside. It is not that bad, though, and the view from the viewing platform was quite good.
Since Australia was much much more expansive to us than what we planned, we decided that the New Zealand part of the trip will be much more economic. In order to do that we decided to try hitchhiking from place to place. We never tried it before, so when we came back to Rotorua we wanted to try hitching for the first time. The experience was rather disappointing, since we've waited quite a lot, watching the drivers do strange hand gestures to explain that they are not going to Rotorua (as if… we were only 5 minute drive out of the town) before we got our first hitch – an Australian guy on vacation with his two little children. He took us all the way to town and then showed us the lake front and told us were to go. Later in the trip we learned that the only extraordinary thing about this hitch was the fact that the guy was Australian. The Kiwis generally love to stop for hitchhikers and they will take you wherever you need even if it is a 20km detour from the place they need. But we didn't know that then, so we were quite amused that the only one who stopped was a tourist like us.
We walked on the strange colored lakeside "enjoying " the odor in the air and got to a huge colony of water birds. From some reason it seems that the smelly water is a good place to find food, if you are a bird, and the lake is full with ducks, geese, gulls and cormorants. The gulls, as usual, make a lot of noise, and spend their time being absolutely nasty to each other.
Further on the road there is yet another geothermal site with steam coming out of the ground. At the end of the walk we also visited the beautiful museum (only from the outside) and the gardens around it. Both of them are well worth the time if you are in Rotorua.
We completed our geothermal education by visiting the open (and free) geothermal park, which is a collection of geothermal phenomena such as very hot steaming pools, mineral colored rocks and bubbling mud that makes the funny noises you would expect from mud that bubbles.
On the next day we left to Taupo town, on the shore of the Taupo Lake. It was the first real hitchhiking experience and it didn't started good. We lifted our finger and waited for someone to stop but it didn't happen. We decided to change strategy and write a big sign "Taupo", and, like a miracle, the first car that passed stopped. It was a teacher, with Maori origins as we discovered when we chatted with her, that took us all the way to the center of Taupo, and even gave us a recommendation about a good place to eat.
We stayed at a motel that was converted to backpacker's hostel, with 5 more people in the room. Since the rooms in the motel were once divided into two rooms, a bedroom and a saloon, and since we got the bedroom while the others stayed in the saloon, we felt as if we got a private room for ourselves.
On the next day we did a hike to the Huka waterfalls. The way passes near the Waikato river which has the most amazing color of turquoise.
Since it is New Zealand, the water and the cliffs around gave someone the idea it can be very fun to jump from the cliffs and dip in the water, so they built a bungee jump platform from one of the highest cliffs. When you get to the place you see a menu of jumps. On the menu today: regular jump, heads in jump, all body in water jump and different variation of tandem jumps or, for the more adventurous, the possibility to jump when your head is covered or tied to a chair, in what seem more like a KGB torture than fun.
There is a walk of two hours near the river until you reach the falls, but it is well worth the time! The waterfalls itself are not high but the amount of water falling is immense, and the scene is hypnotizing. We could just stayed there forever staring at the beautifully colored water rushing through the 4 meters drop.
We spent the last afternoon in Taupo doing what we should have done long ago – relaxing. Since Taupo lake is actually an old crator of a volcano erupted only few thousand years ago (and which the geologists claim is still active!), there is a lot of geothermal activity around the lake. A lot of it is used for electricity production, but some hot water also left for the tourist who want to take a natural hot bath. We went to the DeBretts hot baths near the town and dipped in the water until we were all cooked and ready to serve.
We left Taupo on the next day, heading south to Wanganui.
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Tip 1: Hitchhiking is TOO EASY in NZ! We hitchhiked through most of the north and south islands, and except for 2 or 3 times we didn't wait more than half an hour for a ride. The drivers are extremely nice, and some will take you exactly to the place you need, ask around or call someone if you don't know exactly where it is, and sometimes stop on the way for photos or to show you something interesting. Few drivers even took us about 20km after the place they needed to the center of the city, just so we won't have to take a difficult ride. It is also a great way to meet real kiwis and hear them. You'll find your trip around NZ much more interesting than going in a backpackers/tourist buses, where you can only meet backpackers like you.
Tip 2:Go to the hot DeBretts hot pools if you have the time! It is really nice, and they can pick you up and return you to your hostel at about 3NZ$ more than you'll pay for the entrance.
Tip 3: If you don't wish to spend money on hot springs, you can enjoy some for free. In Waikato river, on the way to the Huka falls, there is a spot where hot water from a geothermal spring is entering the cold river. We didn't have the time to try, but it looked nice.
Tip 4: The coolest hostel in Rotorua - Crank hostel. We can say only good things about this place and the lovely staff.
Tip 5: "Pig and whistle" in Rotorua - An ex-police station that turned into a very pleasant bar. It is even open after 10pm.
Tip 6: A very friendly hostel in Taupo - Blackcurrant backpackers, or something like that.
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