My love affair with New Zealand continues on landing in Rotorua, where we are serenaded at the airport by a friendly woman with a guitar and transported to our hotel about five minutes drive away. The sulphurous smell actually hits us before we’ve even landed and grows worse as we drive towards town but I’m assured this is just a particularly bad area (or ‘active’ area) and we’ll get used to it. Funnily enough, this second part is true.
It is a strange concept when you think about it, that this city of over 60,000 people has been built on an active volcano. The city of Rotorua sits, in fact, on a caldera, or sunken crater, filled with water which the locals like to call: Lake Rotorua. I’m not convinced it can be classified a dormant volcano when there are bubbling, steaming pools and geysers all over the place.
Our evening is spent at Te Puia, Maori arts and craft institute and home to the Whakawerawera thermal hot springs. After a traditional welcome ceremony (the pōwhiri) we are invited into the Rotowhio Marae for an impressive performance of song and dance, a vigorous haka, ending with the beautiful love song Pōkarekare ana before heading next door to feast on the hangi-prepared food. One thing is certain: no one is likely to lose weight on a trip to New Zealand.
Once we’re all filled to the brim we wander out into the cold night, grab a hot chocolate (not entirely sure I’ve got room for it to be honest) and sit on delightful thermally heated rocks to watch the Pohutu geyser erupt.
The evening ends with our guide singing us the Maori farewell which somehow feels like a lullaby. I could just curl up on these warm rocks and go to sleep.
Stay tuned for Day 2…
www.rotoruanz.com
www.tepuia.com
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