Day 13 - Wed 24 Oct

Red tractor

A bit of a sleep in this morning, and Cameron also stopped to check email (mostly to send this journal). We spent an interesting hour or so at the Waitomo caves museum which has many displays about the geological and geographical makeup of the area, the caves and their inhabitants, the cultural and environmental management of the area, and a fascinating audiovisual presentation following a set of cavers through the exploration of a new cave system. This strongly convinced Emma and I that neither of us would ever be serious cavers, as they crawled through narrow spaces with no idea of what was on the other side, and whether they'd be able to get out or back.

On the road and just into Te Kuiti we found the excellent Cafe Bosco (Regional winner of Cafe Magazine's 2001 Cafe Awards, and National runner-up). Served excellent coffee and a wide range of creative and yummy meals and snacks, all with special care and effort put into their presentation. The cafe is right beside, and owned by the director of, Greenplan which seems to be a Forestry Industry investment group. So the cafe is attractively designed and built from farmed wood, but each table carries a little sign espousing the benefits of renewable, sustainble farmed forests. We spent large parts of today's trip to Rotorua passing through farmed forests of Radiata Pines in various states of growth, felling, clearing and planting. We were also hearing from Zane yesterday how the pine trees have affected the soil in the area, making it more acidic, which then affects the caves below.

Did anybody hear?

Continued across SH30 all the way, through the Pureora Forest then past the Whakamaru dam and hydro village.

Drove into Rotorua and straight to the Information Centre to figure out what we were going to do while we were here. Since what looked to be the best Hangi and cultural show was booked out for the night, we booked for the next night. The booking included entry to the Polynesian Spa ... which sounded like a good plan for later in the evening. Driving around Rotorua is quite an experience, with steam leaking from the ground in the most unexpected places. Quite surreal. Contrary to our family visit years ago, I didn't find any trouble breathing in the sulphurous fumes.

Checked into our lodging for the evening at the Lakeside Thermal Holiday Resort. The lakeside refers to the fact that it was sitting directly on the edge of Lake Rotorua, where we were surprised to see a family of black swans. The Thermal refers to the communal thermal pool and private mineral spa pools free to guests. We didn't use these since we had bigger pools to fry in!

After something of a hunt around town we found Fat Dog -- a fun cafe style restaurant with the biggest plate of kumera wedges you've ever seen! Tonight they were also hosting a history class from a local high school, so the place was full of people wandering around in Elizabethan costumes. It seems they had drawn for their parts .. the girl who had drawn the maid was certainly working hard.

The Polynesian Spa was the nicest of the spa complexes we've seen to date. We skipped the Private Pools, the Family Spa and the Lake Spa Resort (since the massages were booked out for the evening) and hit the Hot Springs and Adult Pool. This consisted of a large hot mineral pool (38 C) and a set of smaller, acidic Radium pools (temperatures ranging from 32 C to 44 C about every 2 degrees). The idea is you spend about 15 minutes in the Radium pool you find most comfortable, then jump back to the mineral pool. The pools were lovely and warm .. too hot in some cases. We also enjoyed chatting with various other travellers in the communal pools. However, it was an absolutely freezing night, so people were literally running shivering between pools. Hence ...