Sulphur City and beyond
Here’s an interesting fact about New Zealand. In place names, they pronounce the letters “wh” with an “f” sound. This gets a little dicey when places have names like Whakapapa or Whakaari and I couldn’t help blushing when I tried to pronounce them like a local. None of the Kiwis thought it was weird though, so we just had to get used to it.
Anyway, back to our saga, after our whistle-stop tour of the far north, we headed for “Sulphur City,” Rotorua, which is world famous for its geysers, hot springs and bubbling mud pools. As we penetrated the outer edges of Rotorua’s fragrant aura, a great hue and cry went up in the back seat. Alexa and Simon must have been having flashbacks to Yellowstone as the aroma of Rotorua’s many hot springs wafted through the car and “No more hot springs!” became their new mantra. After we’d checked into our motel, Claude actually went out and bought incense to burn to cover the sulphur smell so the kids could sleep. The good thing about Yellowstone was that once we had paid the entry fee to get into the park, we had full access to all the geysers and hot springs in the park. In Rotorua, you have to pay up to $20 per person to get into each thermal attraction. In the end, we decided to save our money and contented ourselves with visiting Kuirau Park (admission free) before heading south for Lake Taupo.
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Just south of Rotorua, we stopped for a swim in Kerosene Creek which is a hot spring fed creek in a natural setting (once again, free).
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We stopped in Lake Taupo to admire Huka Falls,
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the view of New Zealand’s largest lake
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and buy some long underwear for our upcoming “tramps.” Our next stop was Tongariro National Park where Claude was hoping to do the famed Tongariro Crossing, a 17km day hike through some of New Zealand’s most spectacular mountain scenery. Tongariro is also home to Mt Ngauruhoe, also known as Mordor in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. You can’t go anywhere in New Zealand without being told which scenes of which movie were filmed there (apparently parts of King Kong were filmed in the Far North, too). New Zealand is a virtual mecca for Tolkien and Peter Jackson fans. Anyway, back on topic, Mother Nature prevented Claude from doing the Crossing with below freezing temperatures and high winds so we decided to continue south to Wellington the next morning where we would catch the ferry to the South Island. On the way, we passed through Wanganui and stopped at “the world’s best playground” (according to the kids). The best part was that this wasn’t an ultramodern playground with slick, high-tech climbing gyms. Instead, it was a fairytale themed park that was started by local citizens over fifty years ago and had evolved into its current state.
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The kids loved it so much that we had to bodily remove them in order to continue on to Wellington.
We arrived in windy Wellington with several hours to kill before our ferry so we decided to spend the rest of the day at Te Papa, Wellington’s fabulous museum. All I can say is “Wow!” In four hours we learned more about New Zealand, its people and its history than in the rest of our stay there. There were interactive exhibits for the kids and even a virtual reality ride that transported us to the Wellington of the future. Simon particularly enjoyed the computer game where he had to identify seeds in moa poop; he giggled like a maniac at the fart sound effects (in case you didn’t know, the moa is New Zealand’s enormous flightless bird that was hunted to extinction for its feathers). Adding to our enjoyment was the free admission. After three hours, we were sad leave to catch our ferry. Nothing to do now but look forward to our adventures in the South Island.
To see our photos from the North Island, go to our web album.
Tags: New Zealand, Rotorua, Te Papa, Tongariro Crossing, Travel, Wellington
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