Been driving around North Island NZ, clocking up the miles. Rotorus was lovely, it is amassive volcanic area and the whole place smells of sulphur. We stayed in a small motel, and even that had its own geyser feeding a spa pool. The public park has been nicely done with bubbling mud pools and geysers steaming away amid displays of park flowers. Went down to Waimangu Valley, which is the scene of fairly recent volcanic eruptions in 1886 and the early 1900's. The 1886 eruption of Mt Tarawera blew a huge hole in the top which overe the years formed a massive lake, we took half hour boat ride to just to cover one quarter of it. It is still very active and the "frying pan" is the largest boiling spa in the world, 6m deep, 38,000 sq m. A geyser blew over 450m in height in 1900, killing 4. Steam all over the place. Its a lovely nature reseve with abuandant animals - they are just about to re-populate with Kiwis, trout up to 20lb. Even if Robbie couldn't catch any, the water is nice and warm by the bank!
Visited Waitomo caves today, saw the glow worms. The guide said thet were maggots that lived on the cave roof, spun tubes of silk that glowed at the tip so thay could catch flies to eat - looked like LEDs to me. Spent the evening in the Toby Jug, steaks, NZ beer, live music and Aus rugger on bigscreen. Off to Brisbane tomorrow.
1 comment:
Great to see you two are thoroughly enjoying yourselves. Still not sure why you had to leave Oz to go to NZ and then back to Oz. No wonder your body clocks up the hooglie!
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