Rotorua

After we left Marlborough (very reluctantly i might add!), we took the ferry to Wellington. Unfortunately, we had only left ourselves 1 night and a few hours there, so we didn't get to see the New Zealand national museum, Te Papa, which is supposed to be excellent. We did drive up to a very windy lookout, Mt. Victoria, to get a view of the city which is tucked between the mountains and the harbor. The picture does not do justice to how windy it was!

We then drove to Rotorua, an area known for its natural thermal springs and Maori (NZ's native people) culture. We attended a Maori concert which included displays of their fighting prowess along with singing and dancing. After the concert, we were served hangi, a traditional way of cooking, where the food is placed on top of hot coals and covered. This hangi was lamb, chicken, potatoes, and kumera (sweet potatoes). Only the kumera was really a traditional food. I'm guessing the original hangi might have included Moa, a now-extinct flightless bird that was the size of an ostrich. The whole thing was pretty touristy, but since there is no other good way to have this experience, we enjoyed it for what it was. After the meal when it was dark  we were taken on a tour of the gounds to see the glow worms and trout (of course the trout were introduced for sport fishing and subsequently killed all the naive fish - lots of things are like that here).

The next day we headed out to one of the main thermal areas. This area has a geyser, Lady Knox, that the ranger sets off each day at 10:15am by pouring soup into it. Something about breaking the surface tension so the hot water underneath comes out. This was pretty cool, but the bad thing was that everybody watched the geyser and then proceeded into the park immediately after so it was really crowded.

The park had a 3k trail with various thermal features throughout. There was a feature called the Champagne Pool that was really neat because all the minerals in the water turned the pool various colors including champagne pink. This park was ok, but i would have enjoyed it a lot more with fewer people. I've discovered that certain kinds of tourists have no shame about having their pictures taken in front of anything and everything.