We've made it as far as Rotorua, so that means as far as NewZealands concerned there's only 3 stops left! Blimey how time flys!
Rotorua, on first impression, was not my cup of tea (ok, slight understatement). Admittedly it probably didn't help that I was in a ridiculously foul mood. My nights sleep was, well...the term "my nights sleep" is probably far too strong a term to use for the amount of rest I actually received. Jake decided to tap away on his laptop on the bunk below me until the wee hours of the morning, and then the two girls we shared the dorm with got up at the slightly less wee hours of the morning, packed their things and went on their way. This is not usually a problem. Staying in hostels has made me an even heavier sleeper than I was before! Seriously, a 4.9 earthquake hit Christchurch the night we slept there and I half woke up, assumed somebody had lost their balance and used the wall of our room to regain their balance and that was what had made it tilt (don't ask! My reasoning when I'm tired is beyond me!) and then I just drifted back off to sleep! But these two girls were the noisiest people in the history of the world! It wasn't the rustling of bags, nor the sporadic chatter that woke me up, it was the CONSTANT SLAMMING OF THE DORM ROOM DOOR! Considering mine and Jake's bunk was right next to the door you would have thought they would at least try to gently close it, but no. They opened it full and let go each time, leaving gravity to do it's work. By the fifth time I'd given up sleeping through it and just watched the door open, hesitate for a second, gather speed and theeeeeeeeeeen BANG! It was closed again, just in time for the other girl to come in from brushing her teeth. The door hesitates, gathers speed and sure enooooooough BANG!!! I very nearly turned to one of them exclaiming "Do you mind!?". Again don't ask why I thought at 5 in the morning this was a suitable way to tell someone off for being inconsiderate to an extent I've never encountered before. As I before mentioned, my reasoning when I'm tired is beyond me.
And so, back to my original point, I arrived in Rotorua sleep deprived and with a head that hurt with the effort of trying to comprehend how two people, who I'm sure are very reasonable human beings most of the time, could be so, just, GRRRR! I was also hungry. And if you know me at all you will know when I'm tired I overcompensate for the lack of energy gained through sleep with energy gained through food. So at around 2, having had no breakfast, no lunch and very little sleep we're walking along a beach when I notice a steaming pile of poop on the sand. I apprehended the pile of dung with more interest than I usually would. Something didn't seem right, although I couldn't put my finger on it...Oh, that's right, neatly stacked next to the pile of "do-do" was a bundle of used toilet tissues! And no, dogs in NewZealand don't wipe their bums. YOU do the maths! I shook this image from my head and kept walking. For some reason there where seagull carcusses dotted along our path. Don't get me wrong, growing up on a seaside town has hardly made me fond of these particular birds but none the less it doesn't mean I want to see their splattered mushy parts whilst out on a leisurely stroll. What was probably the last straw though, was losing my flipflop in a great big puddle of goo. Don't ask me what it was, because I don't know, but under a thin layer of sand sat a gloopy mass of rotting vegetation (at a guess), waiting for some poor, innocent sleepdeprived backpacker to sink her bare ankles into the gloop. I fell asleep last night thinking I couldn't wait to get away from here.
This morning however we went to a thermal park, by the name of Wai-O-Tapu (this means sacred water in Maori). The smell of egg increased rapidly as we got closer (that always makes it harder to get to like a place, when it smells like egg, and thoughts like "I bet hundreds of people are seizing opportunitys to relieve themselves here, as it would hardly be noticed if you know what I mean" intermitedly cross your mind). However, within ten minutes I managed to forgive Rotorua of all her pooeyness and rotting birdness.
A Geyser goes off. Wooooosh! And a spray of water towers over me (and even Jake!) at about 15 meters, bringing down a smattering of faux rain. It turns from over 100 degrees C to just above cold in the time it takes to reach me from the underground resevoir. We were both greatful for it, today being one of the hottest we've had. The glob glob of bubbling mud pools surrounds us, like thick soup on a stove just starting to warm through (although Emma, it has to be said your home made soup smells considerably better than the mud pools did). There's something toad like in the way they glob. I'm not quite sure what. I think it's the way the toads throat slowly expands and then suddenly flattens again, soon after the awaited ribbit. The mud expands, tension builds and theeeen, blob, it's like nothing ever happened. One pool was quite literally green. Not mossy green, but pea green. If the owl and the pussycat parked their boat in said pool it would have blended in perfectly (and probably have been dissolved by the cobination of heat and sulphur). My favourite bit however was a shallow pool that sretched into the distance and out of view ("out of view" wasn't neccessaraly very far away, the amount of steam coming from the pool seriously limited how far you could see, but the effect was that of an endless mass of water...it was a good effect.) The rock at the waters edge was vibrant red, and stretched until it was about a meter in. From there on the water was a bright blue and green, with the odd pool of yellow, like someone had tipped in a tub of mustard power. It was completely alien. The pines in the background (planted by convincts apparantly) was the only image keeping the scene before me real. If it weren't for that I could have been on an alien planted for all I new.
Despite it's eggyness it was a thing of beauty!
So my overview on Rotorua so far is that it's ultimately, hugely different from every other place we've been. It's beautiful, but not in the rolling hills and clear lakes I've become accustomed to in NewZealand...and my nose is becoming slowly accustomed to the eggy smell.
All my love, Beth :)
xxx
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