Silja: Rotorua – Lake Taupo – Tongariro Ntl. Park

Rotorua is a quiet cozy town that is renowned for its mineral and geothermal resources as well as being the heartland of Maori culture. It is a mix of English Tudor architecture and Maori wood carved elements and buildings.

There is a huge thermal area in Kirau Park and it took us almost a whole day to look at all the boiling water pots, bubbling mud, steaming lakes – including a picnic, a round on the playground and soaking our feet in the warm basins that we shared with a group of Japanese people.

When I woke up the next day I found that constant sulphur smell hard to take on an empty stomach, but we were not ready to leave Rotorua yet. We visited a Maori marae (a community house) and burial site. Under several of what looked like storm water inlets you could see and hear boiling water, which they told us are still used by the Maori to cook food in. In some places, hot water and steam had found their way through cracks in the pavement and one really had to watch ones step and ones children!

We then walked the trail from the Polynesian Spa to the Sportsdrome along the sulphurous banks of Lake Rotorua. Seeing all those sinter terraces and yellow sulphur crystals around steaming or even roaring holes made us all forget how hungry we really were. When we arrived at the camper van it started to rain heavily, which made lunch even more cozy!

On our way out of Rotorua we passed Te Puia and saw the Pohutu-Geyser erupt. Even though it is the largest in the valley, we were quite disappointed and even the kids (who have not been to Iceland nor Yellowstone Park) did not seem too impressed. The greatest experience of the day was yet to come:

In the Waimangu Thermal Valley we found a place to stay the night right next to a very green, steaming lake with a beautiful backdrop of green hills that let off steam here and there. The water temperature was perfect at about 35ºC but still I would not have dared to go in with more than just my feet since one could not see the bottom. Axel, however, went straight in which was the queue for the kids to tear off their clothes and follow behind. Soon we were all lying in the green, warm water while the sun was setting.

The next morning we found out that the lake and the nearby Kerosene Creek ( a warm creek with pools) were not quite as unknown as we thought and we had to put on bathing suits for the morning bath due to tourists passing or stopping, taking pictures.

We then carried on to Lake Taupo, the biggest lake in Australasia, visiting Huka Falls on the way. We shared the experience of seeing enormous water masses «in action» with a lot of Japanese people that all had a hard time trying to take pictures of each other standing at a banister with a waterfall bellow...

We found a beautiful camping spot right on one of Lake Taupos beaches, where we were hanging out for quite some time reading, snorkeling, collecting white volcanic stones and fighting off black swans. (They are fearless! No wonder they have become endangered. I had to throw stones to defend my hysterical 3-year-old and her shrieks usually do the trick!)

Despite the late start we made it to our next destination: Tongariro National Park. Suddenly this trip seems to have turned into a pilgrimage for Axel, since parts of “Lord of the Rings” were filmed here. Thus he refers to Mt Ngauruhoe only as “Mt Doom” and turns into quite the film-director himself, making the kids run towards him in front of it with “weapons”(i.e.sticks) in their hands and angry faces – not really convincing in flying summer dresses...

The next day Axel had his personal Frodo-experience when climbing his Mt Doom (2291m) on all fours. He missed his “Sam” carrying his food and says the person in question will know whom he means…