Mercury Bay & Rotorua
Geyser in Rotorua
On our departure from Auckland, we firstly stopped off Mount Eden, one of many dormant volcano’s in New Zealand for some great views of the city. It was only from here that I could appreciated the complete vastness of the city. Luckily we had a dry day so we were able to see all around, to both the Harbours, One Tree Hill and the Financial District. We then made our way to Whitianga and the beautiful Coromandel Peninsula to spend the afternoon at Cathedral Cove. A few of us went kayaking around the Cove and to ‘Stingray Bay’ where we actually saw stingray’s in the water below us. As you can imagine with my fear of fish, I was slightly freaked out, but it was still pretty cool! Some of them were absolutely massive though. The next day we headed on to Rotorua, New Zealand’s centre for geothermal activity. It was a really wet day so on our arrival a few of us decided to head for the Polynesian Spa, a thermal spa overlooking Lake Rotorua. We relaxed in the outdoor hot pools for a couple of hours in the rain which was really relaxing. I didn’t want to leave but that evening we were going to a Maori cultural evening Tamaki Maori Village so it was out of the hot pools and back into the cold rain again! At the village we witnessed tribal songs and dances, including the ‘Haka’, the dance which the New Zealand All Blacks perform before their games. On our second day in Rotorua we went luging, which basically is speeding down a concrete track on a kind of sledge with wheels and handles, great fun! We had good views over Rotorua too, as we had to take a gondola ride all the way to the top of the hill. After lunch we went for a walk round the city to look at the natural thermal pools and lake. That evening we headed to the Lava Bar for a bite to eat, and after talking to the barman we discovered that if we dressed up in togas we would get plenty of free drinks! So we did and we all had a fantastic night out with lots of dancing and lots of drinking! We all had sore heads the next again day though!
Mhairi's Travel Blog 