Post for 25th Feb...

Originally I did not write a blog entry for the 25^th Feb because I was sick as a dog! I am typing this now at the airport waiting for our plane to Heathrow….. I have come down with a cold, probably something that I picked up on the plane on the way over here. The first day in Rotorua was tough, the wind across the lake was blowing on shore, straight towards our hotel room and bringing the not-so-pleasant aroma of sulphur straight into our room. It was irritating my already sore throat and made it very difficult to sleep. Anyway enough of my complaints, what did we do ?? I hear you ask…well…. Here is what I would have written if I did not get sick….

Today was cool… After a bit of a sleep in to catch up on the serious lack of sleep that we both seem to have had over the last few days, we went to a place called ‘Te Puai’. Translated it means ‘The Geyser’. It is a very geologically active area of Rotorua where there are several active geysers, mud pools and mineral baths. It is basically set out like a nature reserve come garden where the main feature is a geyser that shoots boiling water about 10 meters into the air. We where luck and go to see it when it was active. Apparently there is not set rhyme or rhythm to when it blows, but there was a period about 5 years ago when this particular geyser went off for 360 days in a row. I did also learn a new bit of science, the team ‘soaping’. Soaping is the practice of putting soap into a geyser to intentionally set it off, apparently the soap breaks the surface tension of the water and causes it boil, thus the geyser goes off. Later in the evening we hit the bar in the hotel for happy hour the went to a ‘Hangi’ put on by the hotel. Think of it as an Hawaiian Lu-Al… same thing, but Moari version….. this went for about three hours and we ate some very delicious lamb. We did get speaking to some people at our table and we both decided that most people travelling around NZ are retired English couples, probably travelling around in Winnebago’s. Tomorrow is our last day here and we want to pack heaps in