Well, hello again. Boy have we changed our lifestyle since we wrote to you last! But first - here´s what we did over our last few weeks in New Zealand: After Lake Taupo we drove a couple of hours further north again to Rotorua - the famous geothermal hotspot of the Northern island. We began our two-day visit by finding a brilliant campsite in Waikite Valley - built around some hot springs which ran right through it. A 5-minute walk to the source revealed steam rising from a boiling lake which bubbled and boiled at well over 100 degrees celsius, just like that in the middle of a field! Steaming water literally roared from the ground and at the campsite we were constantly surrounded by steam and bubbling pools. Our evening `swim` was in a 40-degree natural hotpool. Very nice!
We also spent a day in "Thermal Wonderland", which as its name suggests is literally a theme park of incredible natural phenomenon. It is home to the Lady Knox geyser which promptly erupts at 10.15am daily but is "kick started" by a ranger dumping 300ml of soap powder into its mouth! The detergent lowers the surface tension of the water so that it can begin to boil over, and soon after, a 45 minute explosion begins. For those who are interested, the `soap trick`was discovered when some prisoners were doing their laundry and found that their Y-fronts shot 15-30 metres into the air! We were a bit perturbed that the eruption was not entirely natural, but the ranger assured us that the geyser naturally erupts on a 20-30 hour cycle, so he wasn´t really doing that much harm, just making sure it could let off some steam! We also saw some incredible mineral lakes ranging in colour from purple and blue to yellow and green. Most bizarre! The best bit was the boiling mud pools which Chris successfully stopped Emily from going to play in. They were great big belchy, gurgly farty pools of stinky mud and boy did they look like fun...
As well as these amazing natural geothermal wonders, Rotorua is the heartland of New Zealand's Maori culture. The Te Arawa people of Rotorua were New Zealand's first visitor guides, leading the way to the natural wonders that have been part of their home for more than 600 years. Their welcoming tradition was carried on from generation to generation - and we found it expressed with true energy when we went to "Whakarewarewa". This is one of Rotorua's most active thermal areas and is home to the Pohutu geyser famed throughout the world for her playing, erupting about 20 times a day. It is also home to the Tuhourangi/Ngati Wahiao people who settled there after the Tarawera eruption (1886) destroyed their homes at Te Wairoa. Its full name: 'Te Whakarewarewatanga O Te Ope Taua A Wahiao' really means "The uprising of the warriors (war party) of Wahiao". (Wahiao, being a Warrior Chief of the Tuhourangi Tribe). Our guide quite enjoyed trying to get us to say this in Maori! As well as laughing at our efforts, he took us on an excellent tour of this living village and described the unique lifestyle of his people as they use the geothermal conditions to their advantage (to cook and bathe in). We attended a performance which through song and dance described the history and legends of the Maori people and although it was quite a long visit, we left feeling much more `aware` of this crucial aspect of New Zealand culture. The door to visitors shuts at 5pm, and after that, this tribe are left in peace to go about their daily rituals and ways of life. This includes cooking their meals in earth ovens (a covered hole in the ground where steam builds up like in a pressure cooker and a full chicken can be cooked in 45 minutes flat!) and doing their laundry in the hot bubbling pools as well as bathing and using the naturally hot springs its therapeutic healing powers.
We found Rotorua quite touristy, but couldn´t think of any other way to experience these amazing things and are really pleased we went. We also stopped the car every now and then by a river for a quick "thermal dip" of our own. England should really consider setting up a geothermal wonderland of its own - it would really cheer up those cold winter days!
Our final bit of excitement in Rotorua was a quick visit to the windtunnel there. For those who don´t know, a "windtunnel" is a vertical column of air generated by an enormous engine underneath which in effect simulates skydiving quite nicely as you just `fall`in to the wind flow and are lifted up by the air stream until you float on a cushion of air. We had been to the indoor windtunnel in Florida twice already, but Rotorua´s tunnel is outside you see, so we had to do that as well! We were very pleased to get a "body-flyers" half-price discount, as skydivers are so used to the flying position that we don´t need training in the tunnel and the instructors don`t really need to look after us the way they would with non-skydivers. There again you see, we were actually SAVING them valuable instructing time. (That´s how we´ve justified the expense to ourselves anyway!)
We drove out of Rotorua with two stupidly happy faces and zoomed on up to Omokoroa (near Tauranga) where good friends from Geneva, Denise and Greg welcomed us with open arms. This is where our lifestyle began to take a turn for the better...after 4 weeks of camping, just having a roof over our heads felt like a luxury, but this wasn´t just any roof - it came complete with a big soft double bed, a TV with Sky, hot showers, roast dinners, plenty of wine and even two little kittens. How lucky was that!?! Not to mention D + G`s generosity when they offered us the keys to their "batch" (beach house) in the Coromandel peninsula for three days. Umm..err...shall we?....shan`t we?....oh, ok then! So we moseyed on up to yet another splendid beach in a beautiful location and stayed in their comfortable beach hut eating seafood and going on some great walks to "Cathedral Cove" (where the rock formation has created a stunning cathedral-like cove) and "Hot water beach" (where you dig up some sand by a hot spring and lie in your own personal hot tub on the beach and let the cooler sea waves lick over your body).
After these blissful few days we drove back to Omokoroa and went on a fishing frenzy as Greg just HAD to take us out on his new power boat. We have to just paint the picture for you here, as this power boat has every single gadget imaginable. It has a Sonar which not only tells you how deep or shallow the water is, but which also "beeps" when there are fish around so you know when to start fishing (!). It also has two very handy switches which raise and lower the anchor at the front and engine at the back. That way, Denise can pour the wine and make cheese crackers while Greg sits at the Captain´s seat and pushes lots of switches without lifting more than just the one finger! We were most surprised that we had it in us to enjoy fishing. We didn´t think that we were patient enough, but to our great surprise it was a real buzz! We think New Zealand fish are a lot feistier than European fish for as soon as Denise´s rod was in, she would get bites instantly. In fact, if within 2 minutes of fishing she hadn´t caught anything she would begin to wonder where they were!? There were only three rods though, so Greg became the Master Baiter. Chris tried his hand at this too, when it was Greg´s turn to fish!
We fished and fished until we could fish no more (Emily caught all the big ones!) and then we came home and ate our big Red Snappers with a slice of lemon and a sprinkle of pepper. Nice! When we were all fished out, G+D borrowed some skis invited us for a water-ski! Chris had done this twice before and picked it up pretty fast, but Emily wasn´t so hot and the skis were too big anyway. Her first attempts were more like a bumpy butt-bouncing ride across the ocean with a free colonic irrigation. Very graceful indeed! But thankfully, after another good night`s sleep in those lovely beds, she woke up fresh and more determined the next day and after a few more tries she was up on her skis showing off and doing nice turns. Victory!
We left Denise and Greg with full stomachs, clean laundry, sore thighs, slight hangovers and a bag full of fun times! We made our way to Auckland and checked it out briefly before giving back our hire car and waiting for our horrible 12 hour flight to South America. And here again, a pleasant surprise was awaiting us... having waited for about 6 hours we were pretty keen to get on the (delayed) plane but as we showed our tickets at the boarding gate, the staff`s computer made a horrible noise and spat our our red boarding passes. Oh joy - now what!? We were neatly tidied up in the back area of the desk and told to wait so they could sort us out. We were not too pleased as the flight was full and we thought they´d split our seats up, as Emily quickly vocally pronounced to the attendants. However, to our surprise they came back with two green boarding passes and wished us a pleasant flight in Business!!! We kid you not! We didn´t hang around long enough to find out why this sudden change, but we CAN assure you that we had a marvelous time up there in row 7 as we sipped our Chardonnay and tried to figure out how to use the electronic adjustable seats. It may sound simple to those of you accustomed to Economy class, but believe us - those seats have about 10 different settings! And if you factor in trying to play games, watch videos and read the free mags from the on-board entertainment system at the same time, you´ll no doubt immediately sympathise with us for finding it challenging to adjust the seats. Our 4-course meal was very much to our taste, thank you, and so were the heaps of freebies. (Ok, so the socks aren´t our favourite colour and the hairbrush broke but that´s not the point, is it?!). Chris was trying to take it in his stride and play down the excitement of being in Business (he failed on about the fourth glass of Chardonnay). Emily didn´t try at all. She was in hyperactive mode the moment her bottom touched the seat, played with all the toys and kept walking into the Economy section to compare leg room. (We had more than double!).
So that´s how we ended the New Zealand part of our trip. In exactly the style which we feel we deserve and actually now EXPECT for the remainder of our travels! We will tell you how it goes... as tomorrow we have booked a 9-hour bus ride from Santiago de Chile (where we´ve been recovering from the 16-hour time difference with NZ) to Pucon in the Southern Lake District.
For now, adios amigos, hasta la proxima vez (till next time)!
Chris Esq and Lady Emily