Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Rotorua - Reststop
Ah, a few days without posts! We felt we needed to take a break from our crazy traveling, so we left our fellowship (ha ha!) behind in the town of Rotorua. Rotorua has the highest percentage of Maori-people and it shows when you walk around in town. Nana explained the name comes from the words ‘roto’ and ‘rua’; which mean ‘lake’ and ‘two’ respectively. Don’t start looking for a difficult explanation or a deeper hidden meaning; the person that found the lake found another lake first. This was simply the second one he happened to find. Other than its high Maori-population Rotorua is also famous for its rather distinct smell: the smell of rotten eggs. The region has an extremely sulfur-saturated soil, which surfaces due to a lot of geothermal activity below the thin earth-crust. More about that later!
We arrived in Rotorua on the Tuesday the 7th of July around 12:30PM. We had just dropped off the three American girls and the Canadian girl, because they wanted to go sledging (body-boarding on a river). We gave them hugs and said our goodbyes. Not long after we arrived at Base Hot Rocks, our hostel for the days to come. We grabbed our bags and jumped off the bus. It was a bit too early to check in, so we sat down in the tv-room and watched more Lord of the Rings, whilst uploading the pictures that you can find in our previous posts. After concluding this part of the day we could check into our room and found a comfy double waiting for us, with some clean white towels as a nice present. Obviously, we made use of these and had a very welcome hot shower.
The afternoon passed rather quickly, just loafing about until dinnertime. We had seen some ads for free pizza in the bar across from the hostel. We sat down and grabbed some drinks in the Lava Bar (as it was called), waiting for our pizza to arrive. Not long after one of the barmen brought us a whole pizza! Every other pizza was shared between like 5 people, but since nobody sat where we were hanging out we could munch on our pizza in relative peace. Unfortunately, some other people caught on to our freebies and stole some slices. We were not completely satisfied yet, so we ordered a bowl of fried onion rings, chicken nuggets and wedges. Whilst we were waiting another pizza arrived and we kinda had our fill before even getting our meal! We returned to our room for a well-deserved night of sleep.
The next day we didn’t plan anything either, other than getting some groceries around noon. We asked for directions at reception and hiked off into town. We were both pretty hungry, so we stopped at the ‘Fat Dog’, a rather well-known café with a playful theme. The walls have children’s poems on them about animals and are painted in bright colors. The food wasn’t bad either! We opted for the fish burger, and got an enormous pile of food, which we happily shared! With a full tummy we continued our walk, stopping at several souvenir-shops along the way. We looked at some of the greenstone jewelry, which is rather plentiful in this region. Some of the best carvers of New Zealand live here. We also randomly bumped into a Dutch guy, who was working in one of the shops. He had moved here 8 years ago to start a new life. Sounded like a pretty good move to us! We eventually made it to the Pak ‘n Save and stocked up on fruit (yay for cheap kiwi’s), bread, spreads, cheese and drinks to last us for the coming days. When we got back we watched another movie and got some more needed sleep.
Thursday brought us back on the activity-track. We had decided we wanted to go Zorbing and perhaps also Schweebing after seeing the brochures about them. We jumped on one of the local buses and after a short ride we made it to the reception. Zorbing is basically rolling off a big hill in a large plastic ball. Schweebing is biking a course on a bike suspended in the air; perfect for one-on-ones. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?! We talked to some of the guys that worked there and they told us not to go Schweebing, because it wasn’t anything special. We guessed they’d probably know better and ended up only going downhill.
We had also read we could add a little fun to our roll by adding hot water to our Zorb; it is then called a Zydro (I’m sure you can all figure that one out). We chose to get wet and changed into our bathing suits. We were driven uphill to the starting point and after waiting a while seeing a few people roll to the bottom.
When it was our turn our Zorb was brought up to the platform and filled with warm water. I jumped in first through this tiny hole on the side. Francesca followed me and we were both soaked before we even started! The employee hit our Zorb and we had to get it going! Seconds after we were rolling and obviously no longer standing! It basically feels like you’re in a washing machine (not that I would know what that feels like, but I guess that compares to it best) for a good 20 seconds. Too short for sure! The photographer took a few pictures of us whilst we were rolling. We got out of our Zorb and brrr! Cold! We got changed quickly. I made a few more photos and videos whilst Francesca purchased our photos. We got back on the bus and chilled for the rest of the day. I cooked for Francesca and we watched Hot Fuzz; pretty funny movie.
For the Friday we had different plans: we had booked a tour to Wai-O-Tapu, the Thermal Wonderland. We were picked up around 09:00AM and driven to the Lady Knox Geyser. This natural geyser was discovered by some of the inmates that were doing time in this area working the land. As the story goes one of the inmates was washing himself when he accidentally dropped his bar of soap into a hole in the ground. This disturbed the water below and caused the geyser to erupt. To be more precise, the geyser has two separate compartments of water with different temperatures; the upper chamber is around 90 degrees Celsius (210F) and the lower chamber around 150 degrees Celsius (330F). From time to time the higher chamber would heat up too much and cause an eruption, but by throwing in a bar of soap the surface tension got disturbed manually. This is also how the people that own the geyser now manage to let it go off at the same time every day of the week. One of their employees shared this information, dropped the soap in and then left us to enjoy the show. At its peak the geyser reached around 20 meters (66 ft)! Pretty impressive!
After the compulsory pictures we headed back to the bus and were taken to Wai-O-Tapu (sacred waters):
The Wai-O-Tapu thermal area is part of Scenic Reserve administered by the Department of Conservation and has the largest area of surface thermal activity of any hydrothermal system in the Taupo Volcanic Zone.
Covering some 18sq. km, with the volcanic dome Maungakakaramea (Rainbow Mountain) at its northern boundary, the area is literally covered with collapsed craters, cold and boiling pools of mud, water and steaming fumaroles. The general public sees only a very small portion. The area is associated with volcanic activity dating back about 160,000 years and is located right on the edge of the largest volcanic caldera (depression) within the active Taupo Volcanic Zone.
The Wai-O-Tapu stream forms an integral part of the drainage system which ultimately flows into the Waikato River and out into the Tasman Sea. Boiling springs and volcanic gases introduce numerous minerals into the water which account for no fish life in the stream.
As a Scenic Reserve all native flora, fauna and geological formations are strictly protected. The surrounding manuka scrub vegetation is extremely flammable as are some of the minerals.
Beneath the ground is a system of streams which are heated by magma left over from earlier eruptions. The water is so hot (temperatures of up to 300 degrees Celsius (630F) have been recorded) that it absorbs minerals out of the rocks through which it passes and transports them to the surface as steam where they are ultimately absorbed into the ground. The so called “rotten egg smell” of the geothermal areas is associated with “hydrogen sulphide” (H²S).
The wide range of colors in the area are all natural and are due to different mineral elements. The predominant colors being: green, orange, purple, white yellow-primrose, red-brown and black.
We had about an hour and a half to explore the park and started the hike by crossing a little hot stream. Unfortunately it was rather foggy, so we did not get the full view of the park, but as we made our way down we saw quite a few impressive displays of Mother Nature’s power. The ones that stood out most for us were:
The Opal Pool
A sulfurous spring on the edge of the sinter terrace named after its greenish yellow color.
The Oyster Pool
Viewed from the timber boardwalk and located in unstable ground this natural sulfurous pool is named after its distinct shape.
The Sulfur Cave
Viewed from the track, there are magnificent examples of undisturbed crystallized sulfur formed as hot sulfur gases have cooled in the sheltered atmosphere of the overhanging cliff.
The Champagne Pool
This spring is the largest in the district, being 65m (200ft) in diameter and 62m (190ft) deep. Its surface temperature is 74 degrees Celsius (158F) and bubbles are due to carbon dioxide. The pool was formed 700 years ago by a hydrothermal eruption the rocks from which can be seen at the top of the embankment by the track. Minerals contained in the water are gold, silver, mercury, sulfur, arsenic, thallium, antimony etc and are presently depositing in the surrounding sinter ledge. The various sinter ledges have been associated with tilting of the pool as a consequence of earthquake activity.
The Devil's Bath
A large ruggedly-edged crater adjoining the bush line with an amazing natural water color at its base. The color is the result of excess water from the Champagne Pool mixing with sulfur and ferrous salts. Changes in color through green to yellow are associated with the amount of reflected light and cloud cover.
Other highlights:
Right around 12:00PM we made it back to the bus and the driver took us to our last stop: boiling mud pools. As you read earlier in my post, the mud is heated up by the underlying magma, making it boil. It sounds and looks quite impressive and volatile. Unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of time to stop here and just ended up taking a few snapshots. We headed back to town, stopping at the Pak ‘n Save once more to do some more shopping. We ate pizza and did our laundry, falling asleep pretty late because the dryers were broken and we had to hang all our clothes out to dry.
That brings us back to today! Today was another day of rest! Hurrah! We just came back from the movies, since that’s what backpackers do. I had wanted to see Brüno, and got Francesca excited by looking at the trailer. It was definitely worth it! Don’t expect the bar to be raised too much, but if you just want to go have a laugh go see it. Francesca is about to make me food (heat the soup up and make me some sandwiches) so that’s it for today. Tomorrow we head for Taupo, where Francesca shall jump out of an airplane (willingly)(if the weather permits), so stay tuned for more action!
We arrived in Rotorua on the Tuesday the 7th of July around 12:30PM. We had just dropped off the three American girls and the Canadian girl, because they wanted to go sledging (body-boarding on a river). We gave them hugs and said our goodbyes. Not long after we arrived at Base Hot Rocks, our hostel for the days to come. We grabbed our bags and jumped off the bus. It was a bit too early to check in, so we sat down in the tv-room and watched more Lord of the Rings, whilst uploading the pictures that you can find in our previous posts. After concluding this part of the day we could check into our room and found a comfy double waiting for us, with some clean white towels as a nice present. Obviously, we made use of these and had a very welcome hot shower.
The afternoon passed rather quickly, just loafing about until dinnertime. We had seen some ads for free pizza in the bar across from the hostel. We sat down and grabbed some drinks in the Lava Bar (as it was called), waiting for our pizza to arrive. Not long after one of the barmen brought us a whole pizza! Every other pizza was shared between like 5 people, but since nobody sat where we were hanging out we could munch on our pizza in relative peace. Unfortunately, some other people caught on to our freebies and stole some slices. We were not completely satisfied yet, so we ordered a bowl of fried onion rings, chicken nuggets and wedges. Whilst we were waiting another pizza arrived and we kinda had our fill before even getting our meal! We returned to our room for a well-deserved night of sleep.
The next day we didn’t plan anything either, other than getting some groceries around noon. We asked for directions at reception and hiked off into town. We were both pretty hungry, so we stopped at the ‘Fat Dog’, a rather well-known café with a playful theme. The walls have children’s poems on them about animals and are painted in bright colors. The food wasn’t bad either! We opted for the fish burger, and got an enormous pile of food, which we happily shared! With a full tummy we continued our walk, stopping at several souvenir-shops along the way. We looked at some of the greenstone jewelry, which is rather plentiful in this region. Some of the best carvers of New Zealand live here. We also randomly bumped into a Dutch guy, who was working in one of the shops. He had moved here 8 years ago to start a new life. Sounded like a pretty good move to us! We eventually made it to the Pak ‘n Save and stocked up on fruit (yay for cheap kiwi’s), bread, spreads, cheese and drinks to last us for the coming days. When we got back we watched another movie and got some more needed sleep.
Thursday brought us back on the activity-track. We had decided we wanted to go Zorbing and perhaps also Schweebing after seeing the brochures about them. We jumped on one of the local buses and after a short ride we made it to the reception. Zorbing is basically rolling off a big hill in a large plastic ball. Schweebing is biking a course on a bike suspended in the air; perfect for one-on-ones. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?! We talked to some of the guys that worked there and they told us not to go Schweebing, because it wasn’t anything special. We guessed they’d probably know better and ended up only going downhill.
We had also read we could add a little fun to our roll by adding hot water to our Zorb; it is then called a Zydro (I’m sure you can all figure that one out). We chose to get wet and changed into our bathing suits. We were driven uphill to the starting point and after waiting a while seeing a few people roll to the bottom.
When it was our turn our Zorb was brought up to the platform and filled with warm water. I jumped in first through this tiny hole on the side. Francesca followed me and we were both soaked before we even started! The employee hit our Zorb and we had to get it going! Seconds after we were rolling and obviously no longer standing! It basically feels like you’re in a washing machine (not that I would know what that feels like, but I guess that compares to it best) for a good 20 seconds. Too short for sure! The photographer took a few pictures of us whilst we were rolling. We got out of our Zorb and brrr! Cold! We got changed quickly. I made a few more photos and videos whilst Francesca purchased our photos. We got back on the bus and chilled for the rest of the day. I cooked for Francesca and we watched Hot Fuzz; pretty funny movie.
For the Friday we had different plans: we had booked a tour to Wai-O-Tapu, the Thermal Wonderland. We were picked up around 09:00AM and driven to the Lady Knox Geyser. This natural geyser was discovered by some of the inmates that were doing time in this area working the land. As the story goes one of the inmates was washing himself when he accidentally dropped his bar of soap into a hole in the ground. This disturbed the water below and caused the geyser to erupt. To be more precise, the geyser has two separate compartments of water with different temperatures; the upper chamber is around 90 degrees Celsius (210F) and the lower chamber around 150 degrees Celsius (330F). From time to time the higher chamber would heat up too much and cause an eruption, but by throwing in a bar of soap the surface tension got disturbed manually. This is also how the people that own the geyser now manage to let it go off at the same time every day of the week. One of their employees shared this information, dropped the soap in and then left us to enjoy the show. At its peak the geyser reached around 20 meters (66 ft)! Pretty impressive!
After the compulsory pictures we headed back to the bus and were taken to Wai-O-Tapu (sacred waters):
The Wai-O-Tapu thermal area is part of Scenic Reserve administered by the Department of Conservation and has the largest area of surface thermal activity of any hydrothermal system in the Taupo Volcanic Zone.
Covering some 18sq. km, with the volcanic dome Maungakakaramea (Rainbow Mountain) at its northern boundary, the area is literally covered with collapsed craters, cold and boiling pools of mud, water and steaming fumaroles. The general public sees only a very small portion. The area is associated with volcanic activity dating back about 160,000 years and is located right on the edge of the largest volcanic caldera (depression) within the active Taupo Volcanic Zone.
The Wai-O-Tapu stream forms an integral part of the drainage system which ultimately flows into the Waikato River and out into the Tasman Sea. Boiling springs and volcanic gases introduce numerous minerals into the water which account for no fish life in the stream.
As a Scenic Reserve all native flora, fauna and geological formations are strictly protected. The surrounding manuka scrub vegetation is extremely flammable as are some of the minerals.
Beneath the ground is a system of streams which are heated by magma left over from earlier eruptions. The water is so hot (temperatures of up to 300 degrees Celsius (630F) have been recorded) that it absorbs minerals out of the rocks through which it passes and transports them to the surface as steam where they are ultimately absorbed into the ground. The so called “rotten egg smell” of the geothermal areas is associated with “hydrogen sulphide” (H²S).
The wide range of colors in the area are all natural and are due to different mineral elements. The predominant colors being: green, orange, purple, white yellow-primrose, red-brown and black.
We had about an hour and a half to explore the park and started the hike by crossing a little hot stream. Unfortunately it was rather foggy, so we did not get the full view of the park, but as we made our way down we saw quite a few impressive displays of Mother Nature’s power. The ones that stood out most for us were:
The Opal Pool
A sulfurous spring on the edge of the sinter terrace named after its greenish yellow color.
The Oyster Pool
Viewed from the timber boardwalk and located in unstable ground this natural sulfurous pool is named after its distinct shape.
The Sulfur Cave
Viewed from the track, there are magnificent examples of undisturbed crystallized sulfur formed as hot sulfur gases have cooled in the sheltered atmosphere of the overhanging cliff.
The Champagne Pool
This spring is the largest in the district, being 65m (200ft) in diameter and 62m (190ft) deep. Its surface temperature is 74 degrees Celsius (158F) and bubbles are due to carbon dioxide. The pool was formed 700 years ago by a hydrothermal eruption the rocks from which can be seen at the top of the embankment by the track. Minerals contained in the water are gold, silver, mercury, sulfur, arsenic, thallium, antimony etc and are presently depositing in the surrounding sinter ledge. The various sinter ledges have been associated with tilting of the pool as a consequence of earthquake activity.
The Devil's Bath
A large ruggedly-edged crater adjoining the bush line with an amazing natural water color at its base. The color is the result of excess water from the Champagne Pool mixing with sulfur and ferrous salts. Changes in color through green to yellow are associated with the amount of reflected light and cloud cover.
Other highlights:
Right around 12:00PM we made it back to the bus and the driver took us to our last stop: boiling mud pools. As you read earlier in my post, the mud is heated up by the underlying magma, making it boil. It sounds and looks quite impressive and volatile. Unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of time to stop here and just ended up taking a few snapshots. We headed back to town, stopping at the Pak ‘n Save once more to do some more shopping. We ate pizza and did our laundry, falling asleep pretty late because the dryers were broken and we had to hang all our clothes out to dry.
That brings us back to today! Today was another day of rest! Hurrah! We just came back from the movies, since that’s what backpackers do. I had wanted to see Brüno, and got Francesca excited by looking at the trailer. It was definitely worth it! Don’t expect the bar to be raised too much, but if you just want to go have a laugh go see it. Francesca is about to make me food (heat the soup up and make me some sandwiches) so that’s it for today. Tomorrow we head for Taupo, where Francesca shall jump out of an airplane (willingly)(if the weather permits), so stay tuned for more action!
1 Comments:
Nice Story Henk :P and very nice pics :)
greeez Nik aka Baumhackl :)
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