Long drive Rotorua to Kauri Coast

Set off early as we decided to do another long jump right up past Auckland to the North so that our last 3 days would be more relaxed. Generally pretty good roads and the sat nav came into its own negotiating all the spaghetti junctions around Auckland. Made a pit stop to replace the spare wheel as if another one went we'd be buggered! Made a bit of a mistake getting back on the motorway as we ended up going South again before we could u-turn and head North again. Tsk!

Eventually got to Kauri Forests so we could spend the day doing trails the next day. The end is nigh.

Karaoke in the park

Had a wander around town. There was some really bad singing from wafting from the band stand which the locals seemed to be flocking to.

When back to the camp site took advantage of the facilities and had a soak in the thermal pools for a bit. Nice to spend a day seeing sights and chilling :-)

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 :-/