Rotorura - July 3, 2013

It was an early start this morning but it was ok because I went to bed at like 9 or 9:30 PM last night.  I was so exhausted. And I am on a bit of a strange schedule.  It get's dark here at about 5:30 and I feel like it is late and time for bed.  I think that is left over jet-lag/season lag.  I'm used to it being late when it get's dark.   I got up and got ready and then walked to the center of town, it took me about a half an hour.  Then I got on the bus that took me to Hamilton and from the bus station in Hamilton I hired a taxi to take me to the New Zealand Temple.  I made it just in time to join in on the 10 AM worship session.  When the session was over I had about an hour and a half before the taxi returned to take me back to the bus station.  It was raining, but I tramped around and took a few pictures anyway. 

I spent some time in the Visitor’s Center across the street from the temple.  There was a senior missionary couple working there and the brother, Elder Baker, told me quite a bit about the history of the church in New Zealand.  It was so fascinating.  During the 19^th Century when New Zealand was being colonized there were many protestant ministers and missionaries that came to NZ to teach and convert the Maori people.  The Maori people were confused because these different sects all claimed to believe in the Bible but couldn’t agree on many points of doctrine (very similar to the experience of young Joseph Smith).  The Maori went to their Elders for advice.  After some time of pondering and prayer the Elders returned to the people and told them that they would know the true church of God because those teaching would come in pairs and they would come speaking our language and they will come and live among us and like us.   Well, the Mormon missionaries came in pairs (as we always do).  They came and learned the Maori language - protestant missionaries taught the Maori to speak English.  And instead of coming and building Mission settlements the Mormon missionaries came and lived among the Maori.  As the Maori people saw the fulfillment of the words of their Maori Elders they flocked to the Mormon missionaries and many joined the church.  It is so glorious to me to hear about how those who are truly seeking truth from God will find it.

The return bus was late and took a different and, of course, longer route so it was dark when I got back to Rotorua and everything was closing.  I walked back to my hotel and didn’t feel like cooking so I ordered room service dinner (which I have done only one other time in my life – too cheap to do it most days).  Then I ended the day with a Rotorua volcanic mud facemask and a dip in my private geothermally heated hot tub.  If volcanic mud can grow trees out of fence posts I thought I would see what it can do for my face.  Hopefully, I won’t grow another one, but just rejuvenate the one I have.  

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...

Rotorua - July 1, 2013

What an amazing day!  I am exhausted but let me try to tell you about what I did today.

6:45-9:15 AM: Riding in tour van from Auckland to Waitomo Caves with Ron, the driver and Amy, young Chinese tourist.  Here is some of the scenery.  I took these pictures from the window of the moving van and just know that they will never be a just representation of what I really saw.  Gorgeous scenery!

9:30-10:30 AM: Waitomo Cave Tour.  It was like many other caves and truthfully as far as the formations go, I think Timpanogos Cave in Utah is more impressive.  However, we saw very little of the 300 caverns at Waitomo Caves and there are no glowworms in Utah.  Yes, inside the caves are these little larvae that glow when they eat.  They look like little tiny blue Christmas lights on the ceiling of the cave.  It is pretty cool.  You can only see them in the dark.  So they put you on a boat (another cool thing they don’t do at Timp Cave) and you go through part of the cave on this boat in the dark so you can see the glowworms.  I must confess, as I am writing this it is reminding me of Phantom of the Opera.  It was pretty cool.  There was another girl in the van and on the tour with me.  She is from Beijing and just graduated from uni, as it is called down here (and in the UK).  Amy is her English name.  She is an only child and had to talk her parents into letting her travel alone.  She spoke English very well, but kept asking me if I understood her.  And she was so cute when she asked me to take picture of her.  It was like all of a sudden she was a model.  She would pose and then turn and pose again.  It was cute.  She inspired me.  I’m going to add more modeling to my pictures.  Although when you are doing self portraits that is a little more difficult.

10:30 AM-12:30PM: Riding in tour van from Waitomo to Roturua.  I calmed down a little on the picture taking on this leg of the drive.  But here are a couple of pictures.

 That red line is some kind of bouy line.  It looks wierd, but was so gorgeous.  This is above the dam of the Waikato River. (I'm not sure that's the name of the River...)

This is cattle and sheep grazing land.  Those bumps in the  landscape were created by volcanic activity. When you can see a broader view it looks like the earth was boiling and froze mid-boiling.

 This is the site of a Maori History Story, much like Romeo and Juliet, but with a happy ending.  Remind me to tell you when I get home if you are interested.

12:30-2:00 PM: Check into Hotel in Roturua, eat lunch and Facebook.  I was given a little carton of milk when I checked in.  You know, like the ones they give you in kindergarten at snack time.   No explanation, just “Here’s your milk!”  I ate my lunch and then got on the internet because now I have unlimited free wireless.  In Auckland it was free but limited to 100 MB per day.  But Facebook?  Really?   I’m in New Zealand.  But there I was for at least 45 minutes catching up on everyone’s weddings and Jared Trudeau’s puppies.   So many things to see in NZ and I am on Facebook, but I guess it’s because I love you all and want to know what is going on even if I am in NZ.

2:00-5:00 PM: Tour of Hidden Village.  This was quite fascinating.  Rotorua reminds me a lot of Jackson Hole or Yellowstone.  It  looks like it is mainly a tourist town because of the hot springs, mineral pools, geysers and other side effects of volcanic activity.  Not far from Rotorura there used to be a couple of villages, Te Wairoa being the largest one that thrived on tourism.  There used to be these terraces of hot water baths that were quite an attraction to tourists in the late 1800’s.  Well on June 9, 1886 one of the local volcanoes erupted, destroying those terraces and burying these villages in ash and mud.  Te Wairoa has been excavated and I spent the afternoon at this excavation site.  It was fascinating and in such a beautiful location.

I've never seen black swans before.  Here is a whole family: Mom, Dad and...ugly ducklings...what do you call swan babies?  I have no idea.  The thing that was so funny is that the babies are like the size of a full grown goose goose but still have these little baby chirps.  The Mom hissed at me when I got too close.

These are parts of the mill that was buried in the volcano explosion.  The white lump is petrified flour.

 There was a fence built around the village where you see the tree stumps in this picture.  After the fence was covered in volcanic mud those fence posts sprouted and grew into trees (poplar, I believe).  They had to cut the trees down in 2012 because they were falling on other parts of the excavation site.  Who ever heard of fence posts growing into trees!  It's kind of like Lantern Waste in Narnia....Apparently, NZ is like early Narnia, things grown very well here, especially when covered with volcanic mud.

 Water fall near the excavation site and part of the walk around the buried village.

This one is for you, Angela.  There just happened to be a railing at the right height and I was able to do that timed picture setting and make an interesting pose, just for you.

 The volcano is actually the farthest little mound in the back.  You can't really tell from the picture but all of that green in the foreground is a massive canyon .  It was a breathtaking view!

5:00-9:30 PM: Walked to and from the grocery store, it was about a mile each way.  While I was walking a guy came up from behind me and walked with me for a spell.  When I told him I was from Utah he said,  “Oh, Utah!  Isn’t that where the hill billies live?”  I asked what he meant by hill billies.  He said, “uh, like the Amish?”  I thought, “No, they are in Pennsylvania where I have been living the past two years but that will just totally confuse him.”  And I said instead, “No, I think you mean the Mormons and we’re not hill billies.  We’re just normal people, like you.”  And then he said, “Well, I’m not a hill billie but I’m not normal.”  And then he trotted to his car parked on the street.   When I got home from the store, I cooked some dinner in my kitchen, ate, laid on the bed in the living room and digested, washed dishes and then ended the day with a dip in my private geothermal heated hot tub. Ahhh, that felt really good.

Now it is off to bed, the one upstairs in the loft, not in the living room.  Tomorrow is another busy day.  There is so much to see.  

P.S.  I love my hotel.  Mary and Bob, it's called the Wylie Court Motor Lodge if you want to stay here when you get to Rotorua.