Well, today started as yesterday finished…
However, a land as lush as it is here doesn’t get this attractive without some precipitation 😉
At the risk of repeating myself, today was another “game of 2 halves”
First half was a wee reminder that the Rugby 6 Nations Tournament had just started and, since Gail & Ian are also big fans of the game, we settled to watch the opening match🏉😊
Tuning in live to a UK Friday night 8pm KO at 9 am on a Kiwi Saturday morning felt a tad strange, but was well worth it as this Northern Hemisphere clash of the top two teams, ie France v. Ireland, served up a scintillating game!
Well done Ireland🏉🙂
It was then time for Gail, Julie and I to set off for the Second half, a one night stayover in Rotorua…but not before the NZ Met Office proved correct…..again..😊🌧️
Only a 90 minute drive away, the route takes you through some rolling, tree rich, countryside…
En route, passing through the small town of Tirau, you are reminded of how much the Kiwis enjoy their graphic humour…
The weather was still very fickle as driving through the Fitzgerald Glade soon demonstrated…
Shortly after, we arrived in Rotorua to find the hotel, pre-booked by Gail, very inviting, since it had its own geothermal pools😊
Noticeably colder too, Julie gamely volunteered to leave our apartment to get some milk for a cuppa…
Convinced that no more rain would fall, we headed to the appropriately named Eat Streat where c.25 different eateries can be found…
Whilst our meals hit the spot, dog lovers may have been put off by one option on the menu…😉
A quick walk around town included the shore of Lake Rotorua, where we found a wee flock of Scaup, a small duck endemic to NZ, who were clearly fans of the All Blacks too…
…and 100m further along, some Canada Geese – which are considered a pest in NZ – since they eat 5 times the amount of grass as 1 sheep!
Rotorua benefits from a grid style layout with broad avenues (all given Maori names) and some great examples of indigenous arts and widely different architectural styles…
We had booked an evening at the Te Puia – an educational centre – where we were amply fed and introduced to some Maori traditions in a Maori meeting house, aka Wharenui, by our tour guide Rob, who had lived in the Maori community based there all his life…
The final part of our “package” was a self guided tour of the geothermal geysers neighbouring Te Puia where the largest geyser in the Southern Hemisphere, Pōhutu, erupts c.20 times every day..
I think it’s best to let the following images speak for themselves…🙂
All that remained, after that epic experience, was to drive back to our hotel then walk round the corner to the most famous pub/former police station in town, The Pig & Whistle, where, once Agent Gail had had her bag searched by a huge Maori bouncer, we were allowed in…
Gail was quite calm about it all, but her pal was a tad rattled..😉
And so ended another day…😊
BTDU 