So, let’s get this out of the way – yes, Rotorua does not smell pleasant. However it’s actually not as bad as I feared. I think it helps that the weather’s been reasonably good while we’ve been here.
There’s a lot of touristy stuff to do here, including zorbing, ogoing and swheebing (seriously, I’m not making these up), but as normally happens when presented with so much choice, we’ve actually avoided most of it. I mean when the local park has tulips the size of your hand at one end and eerie steaming lakes of sulphur at the other, who needs activities described by made-up verbs?
A lot of our time has been spent in two locations. Firstly the rather lovely Government Gardens, which includes a museum, a lakeside walk, a croquet green, several bowling greens and a petanque court. Sadly I didn’t get a chance to indulge in any of the more “sporting” activities, but the museum did provide an excellent indoor activity during some heavy rain this morning.
And after hours spent walking around the gardens, we’ve inevitably ended up at the part of town known as Eat Streat (their spelling, not mine – guess they’re really trying to make that ‘eat’ connection). Bars and share plates are the order of the day here, which suited us just fine. The highlight was definitely the To Kill A Mockingbird themed cocktails at a bar called Atticus Finch; Holly was just grateful that Go Set A Watchman has not yet had any influence on the list.
Tomorrow we’re visiting one more geothermal park on our way out of town, and then it’s on to Napier, where hopefully we can find a washing machine and put our clothes through decontamination.