Day 13: Tuesday 10th December
We moved on again, this time to Rotorua. We had some good stops on the way the first was at Lake Taupo where we found the Great Lake Taupo Walkway and walked along for about half an hour before returning. This seemed a fairly new path and cycleway and was bordered by a lovely array of flowering wild flowers. Lake Taupo is the largest lake by surface area in New Zealand.
It was also nice to see some dogs being walked and one chasing a ball. So much of the New Zealand we have seen have had signs saying no dogs to protect the wildlife. We stopped for a little snack just water and a chocolate chip cookie from a packet that had kept us going since Franz Josef with an equally old mandarin each! Anyway with a drink of water it was enough to keep us going.
Our next stop was Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland. It was quite an amazing and fascinating landscape with the beautiful colours forming from the geothermal and volcanic activity. It was quite hot weather again and we spent about two hours to see it all with quite a few steps to climb. Luckily it wasn’t too busy this early in the season.
After walking around in the sunshine for so long we were rather disappointed the café was closing as early as 3.45pm. We were met by some rather miserable staff who said the coffee machine was already cleaned ready to close so we were not able to get a drink. This seemed rather daft as it was a lovely sunny day and people were still arriving at the park. We did however manage to pick up a few souvenirs in their shop as staff were hovering over us waiting to close.
We arrived at our B&B called B&B on Sumner at around 4.30. 10/10 for this accommodation. It was in a quiet residential neighbourhood and was a really nice house. There were three bedrooms all on the ground floor with the owners living upstairs, It was a lovely comfortable modern room with key card entry to the front door like in hotel rooms. Later on we walked into town to find somewhere to eat. It was at least a 25 minute walk to town and wasn’t a particularly pleasant walk as Rotorua is a large town and we had to walk through a retail park car park enroute to the centre. I was surprised how quiet the town was as Rotorua has a lot of accommodation including Fenton Street which is apparently the longest road full of motels in New Zealand! I thought there would be more people about looking for restaurants. We had been told of Eat Streat where apparently there are many restaurants all along a covered walkway. However we decided to wander along some of the other streets first and came across an excellent restaurant called Capers Epicurean https://www.capers.co.nz/. It served lovely fresh homemade food, a selection of NZ beers and wine and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner until 9.00 pm. There was a large cabinet with homemade puddings and cakes but we were too full for those. We wished we had time to pop in the next day for some with a coffee.
Day 14: Wednesday 11th December
Our last full day in New Zealand has arrived. So we need to make the most of it. The weather forecast was good, a sunny 24 C, lovely. We decided to set off to the Whakarewarewa Redwood Forest not really knowing what we would find. It was less than a 10 minute drive from where we were staying and we left at 10.15. after enjoying a lovely breakfast. The Redwoods are obviously not native and have been brought in for the logging industry, but have now become a pleasant place for trekking. We arrived to find this massive tree top walkway of swing bridges which we decided to go on first. It cost about $30, £15.00 each but it was so worth it. It was really quiet so we had each bridge to ourselves with no one else adding to the bouncy wobbles. We spent nearly an hour up there and it was a great experience.
After we came down we quickly gathered up a snack and drink from our car and headed out on one of the forest trails. There are several of different lengths to choose from starting from the visitor centre by the walkway. We started off thinking we would do the 3 1/2 hour one but after a few metres read there was a climb of 500m and so thought it could be a bit much. We might take rather longer than their estimate and so not get back in time. We swapped to a 2 hour one which after stopping for a drink and snack and at various photo opportunities and watching birds, it ended up taking about 3¼ hours! The walk took us out of the forest into more of the native bush to some enormous ferns. There were far reaching views across Rotorua and beyond. We returned to the visitor centre for tea and cake and then drove to the Rotorua Government Gardens. We were a bit limited on time so we never got to see the lake but there does seem to be a lot of interesting places to visit with Rotorua as a base.
Our last evening, and what better way to spend it than at a Maori Cultural Experience. Yes, they are put on for the tourists and seem big business in this area but they are still worth going to, to learn more about the original culture of this beautiful country. We had chosen The Tamaki Maori Village Experience. Their base is in town near the Government Gardens and you watch a film there before being transported by coach to the village. Once there you learnt about their different customs then they entertained us all with their singing and traditional Haka which all the men had to have a go at! This was quite amusing for us women watching, you could see who were the more extrovert ones! A massive buffet feast followed.
Our return coach journey was very lively and good fun as the coach driver got everyone to sing a song from their own country. Most people took up the challenge, although I think one or two kept quiet when the driver asked if there was anyone from their certain country. The driver continued in his jovial manner turning off the lights and getting us all to sing Silent Night in our own language, well it was coming up to Christmas! We eventually got home about 10.00pm after a long but very good day.