Rotorua Travel Blogs | Travelogues | Travel Journals

In half-sleep I could feel the girls were already up and moving around the room. I woke up feeling cold. A little too cold. It seems no matter how cold the weather is, during the night I'll kick off my covers. Childhood habit I guess. I opened my eyes and found another discovery. I quickly rolled over onto my stomach, but there's no telling how long I'd been laying there in a full morning salute that my boxers failed to hide. Maybe the girls didn't notice."Morning. Morning! Morning!" the thre...

Eigentlich wollten wir in der Früh von einem Aussichtspunkt an der Uferstraße auf den Sonnenaufgang warten - daraus wurde aber dank wolkenverhangenem Himmel nichts. Also sind wir zurück zum Blue Lake gefahren und haben dort gefrühstückt und unsere Wasservorräte (nur 18 Liter an Trink- und Nutzwasser) aufgefrischt. Unser erstes Ziel heute war das "Thermal Wonderland" in Waiotapu - wieder ein sehr aktives Vulkangebiet - wie sich herausgestellt hat, das beste bisher. Zum einen war es recht...

Breakfast at the Duxton Hotel was awesome!  I had scrambled eggs with sun dried tomatoes with a side of bacon.  There must have been 5 eggs on my plate!  Of course my mother always taught me to eat all on my plate, so I was stuffed when I finished! Our first stop of the day was the Rotorua geothermal areas -- it's very much like Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming with geysers, thermal pools and lots of sulfurous smells.  And the WH at the beginning is prounced like an "...

7:30 am Leave hotel for breakfast on mountain top restaurant ( Mt Ngongotaha)  9:00 am Visit to the Agrodome and various ram, sheep and dairy demonstrations.  Then to Whakarewarewa Thermal Reserve and the Maori Arts and Crafts Institute.  Continue to a model Maori village and the Thermal Valley  All before lunch!!   Rotorua is in a very active thermal area, even for New Zealand, and has lots of hot springs and a sulfur smell that permeates the entire area....

We left the hotel around 9.20 A.M. for the Lady Knox Geyser that erupts daily at 10.15 A.M. It’s located at Wai-O-Tapu, 20 minutes drive from Rotorua.It is recommended that the tourists should go to buy the tickets before 9.45 A.M as there’s a long queue.There was quite crowded around that time we went (February), the seats were full. Before the Geyser would erupted there’s a staff from Wai-O-Tapua telling us about the legend of the geyser. At 10.15 A.M. the geyser started to erupted, t...

This day we are first going to WAI-O-TAPU thermal wonderland. There you can walk along several small lakes in different colors. I'm not sure what the names were, but I think I saw Artists Palette, the Rainbow crater, sulphurs cave, the blue lake with the red on the sides is the champagne pool and the green one Lake Ngakoro.The second stop was at the lady knox Geyser. The geyser erupts daily at 10:15am reaching heights of up to 20 metres and can continue to erupt for up to one hour. the height...

We headed for Rotorua this morning with a short stop in Hamilton. There are some interesting little towns along the way. We are staying in a hotel that looks out over the thermal pool. We are only stopping overnight so I booked dinner at the Skyline Gondola restaurant. Our ticket includes the gondola ride, dinner ( I am putting photos of food on here. It was brilliant). We also got tickets to go back up on the gondola the next day so that we could enjoy it by daylight.  A must to do!

Zorbing & Luging   Tom was in an understandable grump on Boxing Day morning. He alone had to fly home today & then head straight for work. One last widow-maker BBQ breakfast was his final comfort before the cruel return to reality.   The day’s executive pressures facing Dave, Jenny, Jonny, Bini & me involved throwing ourselves down a grassy slope in a giant inflatable beach ball (zorbing), followed by hurtling along steep & twisty racetracks on tea-trays (lug...

Rotorua is an active geothermal area and as such the whole place smells of rotten eggs. There’s no escaping the smell but you soon get used to it. They have bubbling sulphurous pools in the main park and new ones are popping up randomly from time to time. The main bonus (as far as Caz was concerned) is that there is no shortage of geothermal heating and everywhere has a hot tub or spa. Even the main bus stop has a small pool for weary travellers to dip their feet in. There are also very fre...

... and nobody would know. It smells  of sulphur a lot here, bit like being back in Iceland.  Might see if I can get into one of the pools tomorrow, for a dip.Took the InterCity bus service from Auckland to Rotorua - $56. Four hours later on arrive here, and try to find a place to rest my weary head. The Hot Rock hostel was booked up (person before me took the last single, damn them) - so moved on to my second choice - Funky Green SomethingOrOther. It's pretty good- managed to grab ...

I spent two days visiting a great couple in a little hut on a mountain ridge. While I was there I also went to see a thermal area and some mudpools!! I felt straight at home visiting this fab cottage, solar power and rain water, just like my own cottage I used to have in Denmark.... opg except for one thing... I had a view to a motorway to one side and here the view was quite different. Waking up in the morning with the mist covering the valley, the dew glistening on the grass and the s...

Our last day in Rotorua was slightly dampened by the weather. We had pictured another glorious sunny day when we made our plans to spend our time walking outside then chilling out at the Polynesian Spa, and I'm afraid it didn't materialise. After a quick detour through a Maori-influenced arts and crafts fair, our first sight-see of the day was the Government Gardens, where we walked around some nice floral arrangements and watched some old crumblies playing bowls in the drizzle. On the Gover...

Arrived in Rotorua and its true what they say, it really does smell of egg from all the sulpher from the hot springs. The day we arrived we just had a wander around the town and down to the lake. Then the next day we did a white water rafting trip which was great. We went down one of the biggest commercially rafted waterfalls which was 7m high, the boat flipped at the bottom, was pretty cold in the water!! Then the next day I had a look around Te Puia. It had a maori village and concert, was...

Hey all; Caught an awesome deal on a hostel, dorm room price for single room. Comfy beds, great front desk staff, Kiwi Paka backpackers, I salute you. Food at the cafe is good too. Off season in NZ rocks my world. So, first shell out for tourist type stuff. Went with "walking legends" on a day trip through the Whirinaki Forest park. Really cute, young guide and one other person, an old spanish man I mostly couldnt understand.  Had a great time but the trip would have been alot less wit...

Finally figured out the purpose of the stubby holders. they're not for keeping the beer cold on a warm day, they're there to keep your hands warm at night!