Rotorua - July 2, 2013

Today was little fast and furious.  A little too fast for me.  I think I tried to see to many things in one day.  So there were a couple of things I would have liked more time with but wasn’t allowed due to my transportation set up.

There is a company here in Rotorura called Grumpy’s.  It is a transportation service and for $25 they will pick you up and drop you off as many times as you want in one day.  It is really great for tourists like me who don’t want to rent a car.  It is almost like having a chauffeur.  Anyway, because I didn’t want to have to pay $25 to get the transportation to see one site tomorrow or Thursday I crammed it all into today.

Let me tell you about Grumpy.  Yes, he is a real person and that is really his name.  I met him yesterday.  He drove me out to the Buried Village site yesterday.  Apparently, his mother had toe-head blonde hair when she was child and her father called her Snow White.  It must have stuck because according to Grumpy when she got married she said we should have 7 kids and name them after the 7 Dwarfs.  And she did.  He just said that he was glad that he wasn’t Dopey.  He said they have other given names but they all also got a Dwarf name.  His wife, Pam was driving me around today and she calls him Grumpy.  That is his name.

I started the day at a place called Rainbow Springs.  It is basically like a little zoo specializing in birds, mostly native New Zealand birds.  It was quite fascinating.  Oh, Mom!!  They don’t have any snakes in New Zealand.  None! They have lizards but not snakes.  I saw the famous Kiwi Bird.  It is a nocturnal bird, so they have the Kiwi house where it is very dark inside and have some special lights so that you can see them when they are awake.  They must have them on a backwards schedule just so tourists can gawk at them.  They are, I think you all know, endangered and are not likely to ever come off the endangered list because of the predators that now live in NZ that are not natives ie, cats, dogs, rats and mice.  They are kind of funny little things though.  There was also a bird show.  The bird handler was quite a good looking man – so was the bird handler in Orlando.  Maybe I should go for bird guys.  I never thought about falling in love with Papageno, you know, you just always fall in love with the Tamino types.  For those who don't know that is a Magic Flute reference (you know, Opera...Mozart).  But seriously 2 for 2 handsome bird handlers in tourist locations…Neither had rings on.  I looked.

This was one of the placards at Rainbow Springs...It made me laugh, especially after looking at these fish who "choose" to stay.  They are very big and it doesn't look like they do much swimming.  Corpulent old things just floating there waiting for the next tourist to through it some of the fish food that they bought with their admission.

Next I went to a place called Te Puia.  It is a park that brings geothermal activity and  Maori together.  It is the location of the Pohutu Geyser and a bunch of boiling mud pots.  It also wins for best gift shop in New Zealand so far.

New Zealand's "Old Faithful"

I'm sitting on this bench looking at Pohutu...

...and the seat is warm.  Geothermal seat warmers.

The child in me really wanted to to dive into the mud pots and make mud pies and smear it all over.  They smelled kind of bad though, and they were fenced off.

Then I went to the Rotorua Museum.  It was interesting but a bit over priced, I think.  The building used to be a bath house.  Soldiers from both World Wars were brought here to convalesce.  They used water and mud from hot springs and mud pots for baths.  There is now a part of the museum dedicated to the history of the building and other sections that have Maori artifacts and Modern Art.

The architecture harkens back to the Elizabethan Era.  I thought it was kind of a cool NeoElizabethan look, especially now that I have been to England and seen the authentic Elizabethan architecture - there was a lot in Stratford Upon Avon.

I can't remember if I put it in my post last summer, but I was fascinated by the chimneys at Hampton Court, Henry VIII's palace.  There were dozens of chimneys and they all had a different brick patterns. These chimneys are also of varying designs and nearly as plentiful.

Last, I went to the Polynesian Spa. I had the Lake Spa pass which consists of 4 mineral pools each a different temperature with a view of Lake Rotorua.  It was pretty cool and was very relaxing.  When I got out I just wanted to crawl into bed.  I should have thought to bring my water proof camera to the pools, but didn’t so there are no pictures of the Spa experience.  Sorry...