Our room rate included breakfast, so I ate a large Eggs B. Ais has Kiwibelly or the upsies and downsies as they are locally known so she is only allowed toast.
The former town of Te Wairoa was buried back in 1886 by the explosion of the three volcanoes of Mt Tarawera, hurling pyroclastic mud and ash over 9 miles from the crater. It is an amazingly well documented tragedy from all the journals, eye witness accounts and many artefacts that have been recovered, it is more internationally known as the explosion that also destroyed the Pink and White silica terraces, locally referred as the 8th Wonder if the World.
They also had the coolest little river which flowed from the Green Lake, it meandered it's way through the forest and.... ( just take that it was cool) Anyway, it culminated in a 30 metre waterfall which we were able to walk around, also cool.
On the way back we passed through the Redwood forest, one of the largest and most comprehensive mountain bike areas in NZ, as well as the neighbouring blue and green lakes, so named, because they are.
After a brief car park spat on my driving abilities we headed to 'Hells Gate' geothermal area and spa.
Now even though Grenada has it's sulphur springs I've never visited one before, it's akin to a moonscape, sulphur smelling and hot steam rising from the boiling waters and mud, some reaching 145 degrees.
Hells gate boasts the Southern hemispheres largest mud volcano as well as the largest hot waterfall, the smell was foul- but a dose of pedialite should sort her out.
After a 60 minute walk around the stink and sulphur and steam we opted for a mud bath followed by a hot sulphurous soak afterwards, apparently the Maori's have being doing this for ages, apparently though they didn't wear gold jewellery which corrodes due to the acidic nature of the water...
So wet and smelling of bad eggs we returned to our hotel ( a new 5* one in town) and straight out for dinner at the Pig and Whistle, a pub used to serving 400lb people judging by the portion sizes.
The hotel grading systems in NZ work like this, whatever the star rating, deduct 2 but maintain the exorbitant rate, remove some of the service and half clean the room, then charge a months salary for Internet.
Tomorrow we have planned a tear through the Whakarewarewe (say it three times fast) forest on MTB's and if the weather cooperates a tandem plane jump from 25,000 feet with 80 second free fall, and then maybe some lunch, before we drive back to Auckland for the RWC final.
Another dull day dar nunda then!
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