It's Aonghas's last free week before he has to start work, so since my dad had today off, we thought we might go on our second family outing of the year. It took us half the day to decide, but finally by midday we decided we'd drive down to Rotorua for the day - a roughly three hour drive! Thanks Aonghas for driving us!
We parked in exactly the same car park as last time when we went down south to pick blueberries. We had a quick toilet break before we got going again!
We passed a few icons, such as the Huntly Power Station and, well a lot of grace, trees and farm animals, before we eventually passed Cambridge and Hamilton.
We soon reached our destination, Rotorua!
We came across a park with some hot pools.
We could tell by the fences surrounding some rocks and trees.
We parked and got out to have a look. You could definitely see the steam, smell the sulphur and hear the bubbling!
There were no shooting geysers though. We saw this small pool with steam rising from it. We could hear this noise that was getting louder. We originally thought maybe it was a geyser about to shoot up, but then realised it was just a helicopter taking off from the neighbouring hospital!
Our dad said there might be some more exciting geysers at nearby Whakarewarewa, so we headed towards there, driving through the city centre.
We saw the nearby Lake Rotorua though, and decided to stop there for a toilet break and to take in the sights!
The lake was really nice. There were sleeping black ducks, little paddle boats, the old Lakeside Queen was parked at a wharf, and a plane boat (or do you call it a boat plane?) was taking off nearby!
There were also quite a few Korean tourists around the place taking photos!
We were on a tight time frame with only a couple hours left to go.
We drove to Whakarewarewa, which was completely empty! There was a nearby Maori village, with some kids jumping off a bridge into a river.
We didn't know if we were allowed to cross that bridge into the river though, so we went over to the Information Centre. They told us it was closed and to try down the road around the back at Te Puia.
We jumped into the car, drove down the road and found Te Puia. It was open, but admission was about $47 per adult! Too expensive!
We tried to have a look through the fence, before taking a glimpse of the helicopter at the neighbouring helipad, then got back in the car and drove a little further down the road to see if there was anything left.
There was another entrance, which let us cross a bridge. We got a good view of the surrounding forest and one possible geyser. The bridge just took us to that other entrance though, so we walked back.
It was almost 6pm, and time to head back home!
We did take stop by Tirau to take some photos of the giant corrugated iron statues and buildings in the shape of various animals though!
They really must love corrugated iron at that town!
On our way back, we stopped at Burger King in Hamilton, where we had dinner. Aonghas ordered five value meal deals upsized. They gave them to Aonghas, but didn't upsize them. Fortunately Aonghas noticed, so he took the food back and they reluctantly upsized the fries and gave larger cups. I had already filled my small cup up, and so they told Aonghas just to refill that cup, but Aonghas told them that we were driving back to Auckland, so they again reluctantly gave us a larger cup! The ice-cream sundaes were some of the smallest we've seen as well, with the cups barely half full! Lucky we probably won't be going to that Burger King again!
We made it back home in time for Hell's Kitchen, so it was a perfectly timed, one day trip!
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