Day 16: The last day

Today was all about the driving. We stopped at a few spots along the way to stretch our legs and exercise the camera. In order of appearance:

Craters of the moon is a volcanic thermal field that was somewhat active until the 1950s when a nearby geothermal energy plant went online and lowered the underground reservoir and thus it became less violent and geyser-y and more steamy and bubbly. It made sense when I read the informational signs but now that I’m typing it out the logic kind of defies me. It had something to do with the lowered water levels in the reservoir that changed the pressure coming out of the fumaroles and other such vents. It was pretty cool though. There were all these craters and rifts in the ground that had steam billowing out and boiling mud at the bottom. All the plant life was green at the tips but had a charred appearance otherwise. It was very weird that plant life could live in such an environment with the heat and the soil that was loaded with phosphorous and sulfur. (see the full set of photos here.)

We drove a little further and came upon a sign advertising another thermal field so we pulled off and drove down a dirt road for awhile before we came to some campground with alpacas, chickens, peafowl, and a sheep running around. We decided that feeding the random chickens and peafowl the remnants of our French bread from last night would be more fun than seeing another thermal field. Yep, you can tell we’re city folk, we live in an inhospitable environment but chickens are something new!

From there we proceeded up the road to the tourist city of Rotorua which you can smell before you actually enter. It is also in a volcanic region and the smell of sulfur hangs over the town. Our guidebooks indicated that the overseas tourists typically stayed in Rotorua which stank and was pretty tacky with the tourist trap clutter while the Kiwi tourists stayed in Taupo which had beautiful vistas and was generally a little sleepier. Unfortunately the weather made short work of those vistas as it continued to rain all day. We tried.

Anyway we stopped for lunch in Rotorua eating at The Fat Dog. Their menu seemed limited so I ordered the burger which ended up being ridiculously big and vertically unstable. It had two beef patties, lettuce, bacon, mayo, carrots, cole slaw, a fried egg, and string beets per the tradition down here. I would like to report that they’re onto something down here, beets on a burger is actually really good. I can’t really describe it and I admit that I don’t like beets, but trust me, it works. Kirsten got a disappointing chicken fettucine thing that really ended up being chicken noodle soup. After lunch we walked around town a bit and found a little ice cream shop. Even though it was raining and cold we got some more hokey pokey ice cream because it was worth it. I also picked up a bottle of RC Cola (I know, exciting right!?) that was strangely bitter. As we tried other sodas in New Zealand it became apparent that the Kiwis don’t seem to like them overly sweet as most of them had quite a bite to them, including the Coca Cola.

We then drove up to the North Coast and a little town called Waihi Beach which was very pretty and cold. There were also hundreds of shells washed up so we picked up a good collection while we minded the giant sand fleas that were everywhere.

Our final stop before it got dark was a nice little waterfall along the highway that had a turnoff and shortly beyond that there was a very impressive canyon through which the highway wound its way along the bottom. In fact we hadn’t planned to stop but once we passed the water fall and went through the canyon we decided to turn around and go see them again this time from a speed of zero miles per hour.

From there we drove straight into Auckland where the fearless mountain goat drivers suddenly turned into timid lambs on the multilane freeway and drove SO SLOW. We stayed in a high rise hotel on the north shore that ended up being one of the nicest hotels of the honeymoon. It was a huge suite on the 13th floor overlooking the ocean with an all glass balcony, a full kitchen with a dishwasher and laundry facilities, and a pool up on the roof of the low rise portion of the facility that we enjoyed that night after a nice lamb dinner from a restaurant up the road called Aubergine. Too bad we were only here one night as it could have been a nice little base to check out Auckland.

Tomorrow we have a couple hours to spare to check things out but not enough time to jump off the sky tower. They have one of those freestanding observation towers here where you pay about $20 and go up and enjoy an amazing view and attached to it they have something called the Sky Jump which looks pretty cool. You’re harnessed in to a cable system and jump off a diving board on the roof. You glide rappelling style down the cables and come to a controlled stop at street level. The videos all show the happy passengers landing square on their feet on a platform above the sidewalk. Looks awesome! I’m told that Las Vegas is to get a similar system sometime in the next few years so perhaps I’ll get my chance whenever I get over there again.

Anyway, for now – goodnight!