Rotorura, Maoris and bubbling mud

Woke up at 5:30 this morning due to a text coming in from O2...rapidly followed by another from Marks and Sparks!   As I was up anyway I took my camera out into the hotel gardens to attempt to capture the sunrise.  New Zealand is similar to England in a lot of ways, one of which is that as soon as you point a camera at a likely looking sunrise,  a huge grey cloud appears blocks the sunrise and soaks you.

Not much of a sunrise

We headed out to the Waimangu Volcanic valley,  to have a look at more geothermal stuff.  Unfortunately it took us much longer to get there than we thought it would.  Now normally you walk down the valley to see all the sights then on to a boat trip round the lake and finally a bus trip back.  As we were short on time we just went for the boat trip.  So we got the bus down the hill,  just us two and the driver.  The driver was very kind and stopped at various points so we could see most of what we would have seen if we had walked.  Then it was onto the boat for a trip round the lake to view the steaming cliffs, small geysers and fumeroles - literally "oles for fumes". Then onto the bus,  with loads of people who had done the walk, to get back up the hill. 

Cruising the lake

An ickle geyser

Fumeroles...er fuming

Then we headed back to our hotel for pick-up to take us to the Maori Hangi feast.  We got picked up by a minibus that took us down to Te Puia thermal valley and Maori park.  First a tour of the Maori carving school , which looked really rather skilled. Then it was on to the weaving school where we learnt how to make a grass skirt, which whilst very clever does make an uncomfortable item of clothing. 

Next came a chance to view the shy, nocturnal Kiwi bird. Kiwi is a Maori word that means cuuuutttteeee in English. As they are nocturnal they keep them in a dark enclosure so they were active for us. Then a chance to view the bubbling mud pools and geysers.

Now it was time for the main event, the Maori cultural evening and Hangi feast.  The whole thing was very well done with various songs, dancing and hakas.  The trouble was it did have shades of Monty Python about it.  I kept expecting Graham Chapman to appear in the middle of it saying "now stop that, it's got silly,  what started as a nice war-dance has just got a bit silly". Mind you,  I don't think I will mention that thought to one of those big Maori fellas.

The Hangi feast is food and vegetables cooked in the geothermal steam.  There was an awful lot of rather pleasant food - which is no bad thing.  the final treat of the evening was to see the large geizer erupt. This erupts every 20 minutes...unless there are a load of Tourists watching in which case they have to wait over an hour for the thing to actually go off.  The shame was that when it did go off it was too dark to get any decent pictures.  So you will have to take my word for it that it was rather impressive!

A Geyzer doing absolutely nothing

Then back to the hotel for a nightcap and memories of an unusual day.