Saturday morning we caught the Naked Bus to Rotorua bright and early, no don’t worry the Naked Bus is not actually naked (cloths are required) but you just aren’t allowed to bring luggage with you! The drive to Rotorua was so pretty. The first thing that we noticed when we stepped off the bus was the smell of sulfur in the air and how incredibly strong it was. We got off the bus and checked into our room at the YHA Hostel, grabbed a map and highlighted things we wanted to see and created a route.
We spend all day walking around Rotorua looking at the hot springs, boiling mud, and STEAM. I was really excited about all of it. The first place we went to was Kuirau Park, it was on the top ten things to see in Rotorua so we went to check it out. At first we were very disappointed because all we could see was a flat grass field. We thought if this was one of the top ten things this would be a long weekend. But as we walked into the park farther we saw tons of pretty flowers and geothermal activity.
Then we walked along Lake Rotorua and we saw these Maori Hakas or canoes. We kept walking because we knew that there was a traditional Maori church (Ohinemutu) that we wanted to see. When we came upon it there happened to be a wedding going on. We walked around and looked at a lot of the carvings and traditional buildings.
We went to the Government Gardens next and on the way we saw the Princes Gate Hotel. Then in the Government Gardens we saw a group of people playing Lawn Ball and we saw the wedding party again taking pictures. We saw the Blue Baths, Rotorua Museum, and Sulfur Point. Sulfur Point was cool because you could see where the sulfur water met up with the fresh water of Lake Rotorua.
Then we headed back to the YHA to get ready to go to Mitai for a Hangi (traditional Maori dinner cooked in the ground on hot rocks) and traditional a traditional Maori performance. More about that to come soon!
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