Rotorua Museum

Went back to town to chill out and spend some time taking it easy. Went to the museum which had the history of the town and lots of Maori history too. It was an old bath house and had a basement with all the pipes and stuff used to soak the hoity toity people upstairs in hot mud and thermal waters.

Mud glorious mud

So next stop was the mud pool. Quite fun actually as they really did bubble. From time to time it went mental and caught out unsuspecting tourists - made us laugh as we waited.

Champagne Pool & Devil's Bath!

Wow!

Walking in a thermal wonderland

Saw boiling steaming lakes of all colours. This is the Artist's Palette.

Hot Steamy Geyser

First stop this morning was Lady Knox geyser which erupts at 10:15 every morning. Amazing! Well it's actually done by chucking a load of soap substitute down once the tourists have gathered to take photos so it's not exactly magic :-/

Rotorua

Found a had to ask around for a supermarket to get food for the night and checked in to Cosy Cottages Motor Park. Great little place with hot thermal pools and a track to bubbling mud by the lake. Get whiffs of rotten eggs every now and again but that's why you come here! Certainly noticed it gets dark earlier as we are quit a bit further North than when we started. Lemon pepper chicken schnitzels for dinner!

Oh bugger :(

Not the best day. Woke up a bit jaded from the night before.

Decided to break the cycle of driving every day by skipping ahead on the itinerary and driving direct to Rotorua in the North and staying there for 2 nights so we would have time to visit and do stuff properly. Should have been a 6 hr drive as the roads were fast. Very windy still - van was being blown about all over the place.

Next thing a tyre blew doing 100 km/hr on a long straight! Unbelievable! Took almost 2 hours to change it by the roadside in the rain. Not happy :(

Well sheer determination payed off and we got going again. Still mega windy down something called Desert Highway but made better progress.

Got to Rotorua around 7pm tired and dirty. At least the weather is a lot better now so fingers crossed for tomorrow.....