NZ +19: Hell's Gate

Now this was a weird place. As well as my description, make sure you look at the website because you can find out exactly why it's as weird as it is and what's going on just underground to make it look and behave like it does. (I know the picture of the two women smothering each other in mud on the homepage makes it look like an an entirely different kind of place, but get past that...)

It was weird because I walked around the park entirely on my own, as I got there ten minutes before they let the last person in. That gives you an hour to look around before it gets dark.

And it was very disconcerting.

I'm not entirely sure if the Maori stuff on here is a warning or a welcome...



But this was defintiely a warning...



And it needed to be, because the lunar landscape was a-bubbling and a-boiling and a-smelling of sulphur like you would not believe...



...sometimes very close to the path...



...sometimes it was water seething away...



...and sometimes it was mud...



...in places, mini-volcanoes had been forced up through the surface and boiled like cauldrons...



...and elsewhere, vile-smelling sulphorous waterfalls had carved channels down the hill...



...the whole place had an eerie feel, a bit alien...



...and as dusk fell...



I was quite relieved to get back to the car.

A strange place!

NZ + 19: Volcanoes and Waterfalls

The buried village at The Buried Village is buried because a mountain exploded and chucked lava and mud and ash all over it.

As you might expect, it's not completely buried or there would be precious little point in it being a tourist attraction. And it's quite a good one!

They have restored parts of this hut and excavated so you can go inside, but most of the original timbers are there and it's up to its waist in solidified geothermal gunk...



...as is this one...



...and this one...



There was a whole hotel here at the time of the explosion and the solitary occupant was some bloke from Newcastle-upon-Tyne who had just lost all of his family in tragic circumstances and had come here to see lovely scenery and get away from it all. The veranda collapsed on him during the eruption and that was him gone too. You can probably find his name on the website. I can't remember it, despite the interactive three-minute audio-visual presentation, the like of which is compulsory at this kind of place.

Anyway, eruption and buried stuff aside, another side effect of the turbulent NZ landscape has been to create these waterfalls in the valley just downstream from the village. Photos don't do this kind of thing justice, but here are a couple anyway...



I know there are bigger ones elsewhere, but this was very secluded and extremely beautiful.



And that was it here.

Apart from the Blue Lake and the Green Lake which we stopped to have a look at. Here's the info - you'll have to enlarge it to see!



And now you've read that, all you have to do is work out which one is which.





I'm not sure it's that hard!

And after the cable car and the luge and the buried village and the waterfalls and the lakes you might think that was it for today, but there was still time to visit Hell!

NZ +19: What Goes Up...

Started today at Skyline, which is not very extensive in its range of attractions, but it serves the basic purpose of taking you up the mountain...



(They do shut the doors...)



It's deceptively high and gives you a good view of the city of Rotorua, or Stinkville, on the way up...



Anyway, you get to the top, where there are more good views. This is the Lake and the (no doubt volcanic, they all are) island in the middle...



Once you are at the top, you strap on a helmet and sit in a very small go-kart effort and go hell-for-leather down the mountainside. It can't be that scary we thought, little kids are doing it...



...and there was a choice of scenic, intermediate and advanced tracks snaking their way down...



...and everyone had to do the scenic one first.

I think that's so when you arrive at the bottom with your eyes watering and your limbs shaking, you know exactly what the intermediate and advanced will do to you. But we still went on them anyway!



This is from the very bottom, when you have to slow down anyway, so I wasn't going very fast here. Not that you can tell from the photo.

At any rate, I wasn't the one who came off and ended up in First Aid!



When you got to the bottom, all you wanted to do was race to the top and have another go. But you had to take the slow and leisurely ski-lift back up...



Which at least gave you chance to get your breath back...

Thrill-seeking over for the day, we went in search of culture at the Bureied Village.

NZ +19: Uncle Ian...

Had a message from the UK this morning which I have been given permission to share with everyone! As some of you might know, I am due to become an uncle round about my birthday next year, but until now, didn't know to what.

Well, still don't know to what, but if you can work it out from the picture, you can let me know. Just don't tell my sister or Roger, 'cos they don't want to know want to know!

NZ +19: A User's Guide and a Painful Reminder

Just a quick one. A couple of people have texted me to say that the earlier posts have disappeared. They haven't, they are just archived.

Scroll down until you see archives in the panel on the right...



...and click on July or August. It's all there, but the front page only shows the last few posts.

And for for those people that didn't know about my friend Andy in New Plymouth breaking my leg in three places, he didn't do it this holiday, he did it 16 years ago and it was an accident. I still have the souvenirs...

NZ +18: Rotorua and more Posh Living Quarters!

We are getting used to luxury accommodation now. Never again will we slum it bunk beds à la Queenstown Lodge! In Rotorua, we are staying at the Mayfair Apartments.

It's OK, I suppose. Do you want to see photos???

This is just one of our living rooms...



...and this is the kitchen...



...and this is our other living room...



...and this is our balcony.



There are also two bedrooms and a dining room and a bathroom and a laundry that you get to in a lift. And a spa bath. You get the idea. And we are staying here for two nights, so it's got to be good!

A quick glance at RotoVegas has revealed an interesting shopping centre...



...and steam randomly dispersing from holes in the ground...



...and some black swans, which were very friendly, but still believing that whole "they can break your arms" thing, I took this on zoom...



The most important thingI have to say about it so far, though, its that it stinks. To high heaven. Sulphurous pools issuing forth here and there give the whole place a deeply pervading smell of rotten eggs. I suppose we will get used to it.

Off tomorrow to do The Buried Village (Ye Olde Genuine Maori Village buried by Ye Olde Earthquake Explosion Volcano incident a few hundred years ago) and a luge ride, which apparently is very safe, but on which someone died last year.

NZ +18: Things NZ gets right... and wrong... (1)

OK.

Just an occasional series of musings which I may or may not come back to.

First of all, two things they get right here, which would be good back in the UK.

Intelligent petrol pumps...



You can type in how much petrol you want or just press FILL and then squeeze the trigger on the handle and let go. Very convenient.

Supermarket Grammar...

Lynne Truss would be, and I am, very impressed with...



...which puts the UK's "12 items or less" to shame. Yes, I know I am pedantic.

BUT...

...they need to learn the word "trolley". That's "t.r.o.l.l.e.y., trolley."

NZ +17: Another Auckland Day

We did more in Auckland today, some of it successful and some of it less so!

The first thing we did was go to Kelly Tarlton's Underwater Sealife and General Oceanarium Antarctic Experience. I think that is what it was called...and this was one of the things that was good!

There's a whole reconstruction of Scott's Base at the South Pole, or thereabouts. God knows quite why he needed a piano...



But I can see the need for the Lyle's Golden Syrup and Heinz Ketchup... (You will need to zoom in!)



Anyway, that's all merely a sideshow to the main event which is/are the groovy sea creatures. Now, it's all supposed to be lovely and Kelly Tarlton was an environmentalist and all that, but he's still created underwater cages much smaller than these animals' usual habits and is keeping them captive. You can debate that at your leisure, meanwhile, here are some photos...

This is Phoebe. She's a stingray. She's really, really big. And probably quite stingy, but I didn't get close enough to find out...



And here are some penguins. The genuine article, not stuffed or anything...!



We were of the general opinion that these were quite cute. So here the are looking cute from a different angle...



Disappointingly, none of them looked very much like Pingu. And they smelt quite badly of fish. As you might expect, I suppose.

Now, there was also one of those under sea perspex tunnels where all the fish and random aquatic life swim/float/splash around above your head and I know they have those in loads of places now, but this one was the first one in the world. it even has an airport travelator going through it so you don't have to walk.

When you try to take photos through perspex with an automatic digital camera, either the flash goes and reflects and blinds you, or the automatic focus automatically focusses/focuses (??) on the perspex and not the fish, or it's too dark and the exposure isn't quick enough and if you are like me and have never actually read the manual that came with the camera and worked out how to do it all manually and professionally, you don't get very good photos.

Out of about 30 I took, this one was the nearest to being any good. At least you can make out fish. They are interesting and exotic and tropical etc. Take my word for it, they are not cod.



So, enough of the fish. We went in search of a genuine Maori settlement! Did we find it? No, we didn't. The map was unfortunately lacking enough detail and when we had tried a couple of dead ends and found a monument to a dead prime minister...*



...we gave up. But that doesn't matter, as genuine Maori settlements are two-a-penny here and we have a couple of others on the itinerary.

So instead, we went to One Tree Hill.

Now, what would you expect this to have at the top???

30 seconds thinking time...



And after playing a fairly fruitless game of Spot the Tree, we gave up and looked at the nice obelisk instead.



However, by this time, as you can perhaps tell by the photo, it was absolutely chucking down and we ran for cover, never knowing what the obelisk was actually there to commemorate. If Ann Crocker gets back from her hols anytime soon, she will no doubt tell me, unless someone beats her to it. Now there's a challenge...

We had been welcomed to Auckland by Jen and Ian...



...and we had an a really lovely meal with them on Sunday evening.

With them and their son Mark and his wife Rachel and their son Zachary and Mark's sister Karen and her husband Murray and their children Harley and Lauren and Rhys. And Murray's sister and her husband and daughter. And Murray's Mum and Dad, Bill and Sheila, who are off to the UK on Tuesday and wanted to know all about it. And Murray's brother. And I think that's it! A real houseful, but it was lovely to be welcomed into their family and treated so well.

Jen and Ian are both teachers, so we fell into lots of deep, meaningful education conversations as teachers tend to do when they get together. Hmmm.

Off to Rotorua tomorrow. Or RotoVegas, as we have heard several Kiwis call it.

It sounds classy.

* Dead Prime Ministers are also two-a-penny here, unfortunately. The monument, however, is for Michael Joseph Savage, NZ's first labour PM.