So while Danielle and Britt were enjoying the Polynesian Spas and Valena was wandering around Rotorua, I decided to rent a car with Tom and Andrew for a day and find some hikes to do. It was an adventure to say the least. The first hurdle we had to tackle was Tom driving an automatic. We all assume that it's only difficult to learn how to drive a standard after an automatic, but Tom proved that apparently it's the same for driving an automatic after driving a standard your whole life. We had to constantly remind him that there was no clutch and he did not have to shift. This proved to be very difficult for him when he tried to pull a U-turn and ended up slamming on the "clutch" and trying to shift into lower gear. Luckily between me and Andrew yelling and Tom's quick thinking, he managed to pop it out of reverse, into drive and off we went. After the rough start, he seemed to do pretty well and finally we were off to our first stop, the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. The park is full of geysers, volcanic rocks, colorful pools, sulphur mounds, bubbling pools of mud, and craters, which are a result of one of the world's most violent volcanic eruptions in the last 5,000 years. Of course the whole park smelled of sulphur, but soon enough we seemed to get used to it. The colors of the pools were amazing, ranging from orange, to green, to blue, all depending on the chemical deposits in them. One pool looked like slime, it was such a bright lime green that I don't think anyone that wasn't there would actually believe that it was a pool. There were a bunch of different paths that we could take, so we chose the one that we could do in just a couple of hours before the park closed. About halfway into the park is the largest hot spring water pool, which is called the Champagne pool. This pool occupies a 700 year old explosion crater that was formed by a hydro-thermal eruption. Everything that we were walking around that surrounded it was ejected by the eruption. There was a long boardwalk to get across the pool and as we were walking across and by it, we were overtaken by the steam that was emanating from the heat of the pool. Tom was about 5 feet in front of me and I couldn't even see him. After being in the steam for a bit, the heat and the pungent sulphur smell was a bit too much, so we rushed for some fresh air. I loved amazing range of vibrant colors that we saw as we walked through the park. Every once in a while I was reminded that at any moment another eruption could occur as we were standing on the volcanic grounds. Luckily we made it through without any volcanic activity.
After the thermal park we were wanting to go on a good hike and so Andrew got out his handy New Zealand book and map and tried to direct us to a few trails with little success. First off, poor Tom quickly learnt how to do u-turns on roads with little to no turning room, and was always prepared to stop whenever Andrew told him that we had just passed the turn off. The first hike that we attempted was a gravel road that apparently went on for about 7 km. We
lasted about 15 minutes and then turned back. Next we went to find the blue and green lakes, which we ended up finding, but then took an alternate trail, leading us to a taped off area. Of course we crossed it, figuring that we could find our way through the forest, but ended up turning back once we realized that we'd be stuck in the dark. Nice try Andrew, but next time I think I will be the navigator.All in all, it was still a great day, ending with Andrew and Tom singing a duet on the way home. Who knew that Tom had such a great backup voice...never knew his voice could reach those high notes!
Love Jod
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