North Island Journey - Day #5
19/02/14 12:05
19.02.2014 - Tauranga - Rotorua
Since I have to wait for my boat cruise for an hour I thought I use the time to write a bit. I'm sitting next to
a volcanic lake surrounded by Germans. Yes, they are everywhere!
Was a really nice walk up to this point, I guess it's a good thing that it is not to hot today cause the geo
thermal activity heats up the ground a lot. I actually expected it to be way worse with the sulphur smell.
It's not that bad and barely noticeable after a while.
Next to the path I could see all sorts of boiling water coming up in small water holes or in small lakes.
Steam coming up everywhere and sometimes a stream of hot air coming my way. Since I have a huge
blister on the back of my left foot I decided to not do the hike cause it's painful enough already just walking.
The lake that I'm about to do the cruise on is really nice and I kid you not has at least fifty black swans on it.
I haven't seen that many in one place before, really beautiful!
Slowly but steady there are coming more and more people to that place waiting for the next boat tour and
I kinda get the feeling why the Germans are considered to be loud ... they are. At least when they are in
groups, definitely louder the groups of most other nations.
They talk about Schiller, Karstadt, Bananas in the DDR and how fancy the backpacks are. Now they are
leaving with the bus - suddenly … silence and the cicadas concert is getting more prominent now.
I'm gonna stop now and continue writing later.
Later ... Well it seems like the sulphur smell is way worse in Rotorua than in the volcano valley itself. Did
not expect that! Good that I'm only staying for one night. Rotorua didn't make quite that big of an impression
on me anyway. Seems like an ordinary city, the lake is 'just' nice, everything else I've seen was not interesting
enough to rectify a longer stay here. Missed the geyser though, erupts every morning at 10:30am. If I had know
that earlier I could have stopped by first before going into the valley. Well seem like I have to wait for Iceland
or Yellowstone till I see a real geyser. The lake cruise was nice, went by pretty close on some steam cones. I
could actually feel the heat from the stone, was like standing close to a fire. Quite impressive!
Since I have to wait for my boat cruise for an hour I thought I use the time to write a bit. I'm sitting next to
a volcanic lake surrounded by Germans. Yes, they are everywhere!
Was a really nice walk up to this point, I guess it's a good thing that it is not to hot today cause the geo
thermal activity heats up the ground a lot. I actually expected it to be way worse with the sulphur smell.
It's not that bad and barely noticeable after a while.
Next to the path I could see all sorts of boiling water coming up in small water holes or in small lakes.
Steam coming up everywhere and sometimes a stream of hot air coming my way. Since I have a huge
blister on the back of my left foot I decided to not do the hike cause it's painful enough already just walking.
The lake that I'm about to do the cruise on is really nice and I kid you not has at least fifty black swans on it.
I haven't seen that many in one place before, really beautiful!
Slowly but steady there are coming more and more people to that place waiting for the next boat tour and
I kinda get the feeling why the Germans are considered to be loud ... they are. At least when they are in
groups, definitely louder the groups of most other nations.
They talk about Schiller, Karstadt, Bananas in the DDR and how fancy the backpacks are. Now they are
leaving with the bus - suddenly … silence and the cicadas concert is getting more prominent now.
I'm gonna stop now and continue writing later.
Later ... Well it seems like the sulphur smell is way worse in Rotorua than in the volcano valley itself. Did
not expect that! Good that I'm only staying for one night. Rotorua didn't make quite that big of an impression
on me anyway. Seems like an ordinary city, the lake is 'just' nice, everything else I've seen was not interesting
enough to rectify a longer stay here. Missed the geyser though, erupts every morning at 10:30am. If I had know
that earlier I could have stopped by first before going into the valley. Well seem like I have to wait for Iceland
or Yellowstone till I see a real geyser. The lake cruise was nice, went by pretty close on some steam cones. I
could actually feel the heat from the stone, was like standing close to a fire. Quite impressive!