Rotorua to Wellington
Aug. 7th, 2018 12:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetDespite having only one day in Rotorua, we decided to make it an easy one, after going so hard the day before.
We let Alice sleep until 11am and still had to pry her out of bed. We decided to try the "high tea" at our hotel's restaurant, passing the time until it was ready with a brief stroll in the Government Gardens. Duke's did a lovely job of cut sandwiches, very light scones with the requisite strawberry jam and clotted cream, and a nice selection of sweets, alongside perfectly nice looseleaf Earl Grey and a fabulous hot chocolate for Alice.
We wandered around the block and over to the shores of Lake Rotorua, where we found a replica war canoe and an excellent playground. Then we went back to the hotel and soaked in the hot mineral pools in the courtyard and wrote a few postcards.
In the late afternoon we went out to Te Puia, the site of a former Maori village whose lands included the largest of New Zealand's 60 geysers. Our guide, Carla, told us stories about the history of the land and its people, and about herself--a lot about herself--as she showed us the geysers, the river, the mudpool, and their two live kiwi birds. There is also a replica village and a crafts school and demo area we had hoped to see, but Carla had run over time and we had to head right to the gift shop to meet our hosts for the evening.
They welcomed us and led us to the wharenui, or meeting house, where the cultural performance would take place. We needed a leader to represent us in the welcome ceremony, so Jason volunteered and did a very fine job of it. The tribe's champion came out and danced a challenge, but also offered a fern leaf. By picking up the leaf, Jason indicated that we came in peace and we were invited into the wharenui. There another member of the tribe welcomed us in Maori and then Jason and the champion performed the hongi pressing of noses. Our host explained that the full ceremony takes about two hours, but they try to speed it up for us tourists.
The show was similar in content to what we'd seen in Auckland--demonstration of different dances, games, and weapons, including the same love song and ending with a haka. Alice went up on stage to try the poi--stuffed balls on strings that add rhythm as well as visual elements to the dances. And of course Jason got up to learn some haka moves.
After the show we had a very tasty buffet dinner including bread, roasted corn, and mussels baked in garlic cream sauce, seafood chowder, kumara & watercress soup, steamed prawns, mussels in vinaigrette, smoked eel, and various salads. Several of the main dishes (chicken, lamb, squash, vegetables, bread stuffing) had been cooked in the hangi, an underground steam oven. They was also roast pork, fried noodles, fettuccine with mushrooms, cheesy potatoes, and other things I'm probably forgetting. The third table had desserts, including spice cake with custard sauce, Pavlova, cheesecake, chocolate balls, and ice cream. Alice went back at least four times for more fried noodles! We were once again seated between a German family and a Thai family and I mostly talked with the German woman next to me.
After dinner they put us all in carts and took us down to the geyser area where we sat on the hot rocks--concrete benches with water from the hot springs piped through them--while our host, Hutu, told us stories and hoped the geysers would erupt. They didn't, which was not a big deal for us, as we had seen them that afternoon. They loaded us back on the carts and just as we passed them, the smaller geyser started to erupt, but we kept going back to the entrance where our hosts said goodnight.
We were up early today, had breakfast in the hotel--Alice got these amazing creamy mushrooms that I should learn to make--checked out, and went to SkyLine, an adventure park up one of the mountains in the edge of town. We took the gondola up to the top, then did their "luge" down. It's little wheeled carts you drive down a concrete track that loops down the mountainside. We did the Scenic Route and then the Intermediate Track--sadly, the Advanced Track was closed today. Then we decided to do the sky swing--totally amazing!
After that highlight it was time to get on the road. We grabbed food and fuel and drove south all afternoon. We skirted Great Lake Taupo and got great views of Mt Ruapehu and passed through an incredible variety of terrain. At one point we turned off the main road and drove 15 km though amazingly green, rolling farmland with occasional dramatic rocky features, to a bridge overlooking the Rangitikei Gorge, which was used as part of the River Anduin in The Fellowship of the Ring. What a stunning view! Then we turned around and drove back to the main road and made it to our hotel in Wellington just after 6:30.
When I checked in, the nice people here at the QT Museum Hotel informed me that we'd been upgraded from a double queen room to a two-bedroom suite! I dropped Jason, Alice, and the bags, and went to return the rental car, which involved some pretty tricky parking, but no scrapes. Then I rejoined the others and we went across the street to Istana, a Malaysian restaurant, where we had a quick and perfectly fine, but not very exciting meal. But it was good to be able to get Alice home to bed quickly, as she was still seeming tired.
Tomorrow we're planning to spend most of the day at Te Papa before heading out the next day for a LotR locations tour. Stay tuned!
We let Alice sleep until 11am and still had to pry her out of bed. We decided to try the "high tea" at our hotel's restaurant, passing the time until it was ready with a brief stroll in the Government Gardens. Duke's did a lovely job of cut sandwiches, very light scones with the requisite strawberry jam and clotted cream, and a nice selection of sweets, alongside perfectly nice looseleaf Earl Grey and a fabulous hot chocolate for Alice.
We wandered around the block and over to the shores of Lake Rotorua, where we found a replica war canoe and an excellent playground. Then we went back to the hotel and soaked in the hot mineral pools in the courtyard and wrote a few postcards.
In the late afternoon we went out to Te Puia, the site of a former Maori village whose lands included the largest of New Zealand's 60 geysers. Our guide, Carla, told us stories about the history of the land and its people, and about herself--a lot about herself--as she showed us the geysers, the river, the mudpool, and their two live kiwi birds. There is also a replica village and a crafts school and demo area we had hoped to see, but Carla had run over time and we had to head right to the gift shop to meet our hosts for the evening.
They welcomed us and led us to the wharenui, or meeting house, where the cultural performance would take place. We needed a leader to represent us in the welcome ceremony, so Jason volunteered and did a very fine job of it. The tribe's champion came out and danced a challenge, but also offered a fern leaf. By picking up the leaf, Jason indicated that we came in peace and we were invited into the wharenui. There another member of the tribe welcomed us in Maori and then Jason and the champion performed the hongi pressing of noses. Our host explained that the full ceremony takes about two hours, but they try to speed it up for us tourists.
The show was similar in content to what we'd seen in Auckland--demonstration of different dances, games, and weapons, including the same love song and ending with a haka. Alice went up on stage to try the poi--stuffed balls on strings that add rhythm as well as visual elements to the dances. And of course Jason got up to learn some haka moves.
After the show we had a very tasty buffet dinner including bread, roasted corn, and mussels baked in garlic cream sauce, seafood chowder, kumara & watercress soup, steamed prawns, mussels in vinaigrette, smoked eel, and various salads. Several of the main dishes (chicken, lamb, squash, vegetables, bread stuffing) had been cooked in the hangi, an underground steam oven. They was also roast pork, fried noodles, fettuccine with mushrooms, cheesy potatoes, and other things I'm probably forgetting. The third table had desserts, including spice cake with custard sauce, Pavlova, cheesecake, chocolate balls, and ice cream. Alice went back at least four times for more fried noodles! We were once again seated between a German family and a Thai family and I mostly talked with the German woman next to me.
After dinner they put us all in carts and took us down to the geyser area where we sat on the hot rocks--concrete benches with water from the hot springs piped through them--while our host, Hutu, told us stories and hoped the geysers would erupt. They didn't, which was not a big deal for us, as we had seen them that afternoon. They loaded us back on the carts and just as we passed them, the smaller geyser started to erupt, but we kept going back to the entrance where our hosts said goodnight.
We were up early today, had breakfast in the hotel--Alice got these amazing creamy mushrooms that I should learn to make--checked out, and went to SkyLine, an adventure park up one of the mountains in the edge of town. We took the gondola up to the top, then did their "luge" down. It's little wheeled carts you drive down a concrete track that loops down the mountainside. We did the Scenic Route and then the Intermediate Track--sadly, the Advanced Track was closed today. Then we decided to do the sky swing--totally amazing!
After that highlight it was time to get on the road. We grabbed food and fuel and drove south all afternoon. We skirted Great Lake Taupo and got great views of Mt Ruapehu and passed through an incredible variety of terrain. At one point we turned off the main road and drove 15 km though amazingly green, rolling farmland with occasional dramatic rocky features, to a bridge overlooking the Rangitikei Gorge, which was used as part of the River Anduin in The Fellowship of the Ring. What a stunning view! Then we turned around and drove back to the main road and made it to our hotel in Wellington just after 6:30.
When I checked in, the nice people here at the QT Museum Hotel informed me that we'd been upgraded from a double queen room to a two-bedroom suite! I dropped Jason, Alice, and the bags, and went to return the rental car, which involved some pretty tricky parking, but no scrapes. Then I rejoined the others and we went across the street to Istana, a Malaysian restaurant, where we had a quick and perfectly fine, but not very exciting meal. But it was good to be able to get Alice home to bed quickly, as she was still seeming tired.
Tomorrow we're planning to spend most of the day at Te Papa before heading out the next day for a LotR locations tour. Stay tuned!
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