Sunday, May 31, 2009

Mercury Bay to Rotorua

Another early waking up, where we start off the walk to Cathedral Cove, it an hour to and fro walk and you reached the Hahei beach. Great photo taking opportunity, well most landscapes in New Zealand are great photo taking.

At the beach, other than taking photos, there is also a Full Monty show… The five young guys in our group decided to go for a swim and without their swimwear they just striped and jumped in… POWER!!! Our driver, Flea, like taking photos for Kiwi Experience and Kiwi Experience will choose 10 – 20 photos every month to be posted on the website or printed on their brochures, etc. So we all presumed that their naked photos will be the next cover page for Kiwi Experience. This also reminded me of a commercial that goes like this:

Air Ticket to New Zealand: Thousands…
Kiwi Experience Tour Package: Hundreds to Thousands…
Having Naked photos shown on blogs, facebook, etc: PRICELESS…

After the Cathedral Cove walk, we had another walk at the Karangahake Scenic Reserve where we explore the Gorge. Anybody knows what does gorge mean? We had to walk through 2 swing bridges and went through a one kilometer dark tunnel. It is so dark that I cannot see my fingers in front of me…

We stopped at the Hobbiton Town, Matamata, for lunch. This is the filming location for the movie Hobbiton, however most of the props had been taken away, never the less we still managed to take one or two pictures of what are left.

Upon reaching Rotorua you can smell a distinctive odour due to its geothermal activities that created high Sulphur dioxide content. No wonder it is known as Sulphur City. I visited the Te Puia to watch the geysers, the mud pools, Maori Arts and Crafts and a Kiwi Bird house. The best worth of the price ticket is to see the eruption of the geysers which can reach 30 metres high, it is really amazing and I managed to see it. Awesome!!! Okie, educational time: the geyser erupt when the underground chambers containing hot water, steam and gases become sufficiently pressurized and hot enough to reach boiling and the water is expelled violently up the geysers vent and ejected into the air.

Tamagi Tours and Hangi and Concert were more of an educational tour about the Moari history, customs and culture. We had a traditional Maori challenge upon reaching the village, where the Warriors danced with their weapons and determine if you are a friend or foe. Normally you are a friend, I don’t think there will be a foe though. We get to experience the culture – looking at the weapons, haka, listen to some Maori song and feast on a buffet known as hangi (meal that is steamed in the ground on hot rocks) that was traditionally prepared. I really like the fishes and the coleslaw; I haven’t had fish for a long time. Drooling…The driver for this tour was Cheara and the bus name was KEA. Cheara was real funny and before we even get into the village, we are having real fun on the bus. On the way home, we get to sing to reciprocate the driver, as she was entertaining us before. Cheara is so cute that she goes round the roundabouts many times while singing the nursery that had “this is the bus that goes round and round, round and round…” and there is one where she sang: “The driver had no license”. And people should not try the roundabout thing at home because 1. It is illegal. 2. We don’t when the police will petrol. 3. The driver had no license and she got nothing to lose. Hahaha…

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