The Road trip: Day 2 Orakei Korako, Rotorua and Huka Falls

Today’s theme was nature and more specifically two of NZ’s most powerful features: volcanoes and geothermal energy.

We began with Orakei Korako ("the Place of Adoring"), a valley full of hot springs and geysers. Having left the car we took a little boat across lake Ohakuri and begun a two hour long trek past geysers (most of them were rather sleepy today), mud pools and amazingly colorful rock formations. Through a small patch of New Zealand bush we found our way to a deep cave where hot springs created a little lake. A thousand photographs later we were ready to take the little boat back and onwards to our next destination: Rotorua.

Rotorua is a town on the shores of Lake Rotorua (which like Lake Taupo owes its current shape to a volcanic eruption) full of hot springs. After some lunch by the lake we headed to the Rotorua Museum which is housed in the old Bath House, a grand mock Elizabethan building. The building opened in 1908 and was designed to attract the rich and famous to NZ. Our English (!) tour guide brought the building to life describing all the treatments offered in the spa that ranged from the sumptuous to the truly bizarre! The Bath House also housed an exhibition dedicated to the eruption of Mount Tarawera in 1886 as well as a collection of the Te Awara Maori treasures.

On our way out of the Bath House we bumped into one of Blair’s old acquaintances: the Blue Baths, a swimming pool opened in the 1930’s. Apparently when Blair was studying one of his projects was to draw perspectives of this building but he had no idea where it was! Imagine the surprise! Obviously we had to visit.

On our way back to Taupo we stopped at the Huka Falls, the biggest in NZ which provide enough power to cover 65% of the North Island’s needs!

Blair: I must admit that some of these attractions I have seen before but nevertheless I knew that Grigoria would enjoy them and you can’t visit this land without learning about the Maori culture and past, which starts in Rotorua.
Before we set off this morning I said to Grigoria "I have a little surprise for you, but wait until we get to Rotorua"…..yes the surprise was the smell of rotten eggs! (Obviously due to the sulphur of the geysers.) I think she’s hoping that the surprises will get better as the days go on.

The blue baths……It is strange, sometimes I find when I’ve see an image (or produced a drawing) of a particular building I get a feeling of how it would be, but there are times when it never quite feels the same. However when we entered this art deco pool it felt like I had actually been here before, I instantly knew the plan and could see how it would have been during that time. Unfortunately the closure of buildings like this, sometimes erase the rich past of the New Zealand people which I feel is a shame.