“I’m going on an adventure!”

Well thank god today was better than yesterday! It’s been a LONG day, left Pukekohe just before 7am and didn’t get back to my place in Rotorua until about 9:30pm. Which, I should quickly add, is quite lovely. Not the gorgeous views I had last night but a lovely little cottage that I am happy to call home for the next couple nights. The weather was quite cooperative today, some sprinkles and drizzles throughout but nothing crazy like yesterday and with the temps in the 70s it was a relief from the humidity when it did come through.

Started my morning with the almost two hour drive to Matamata. I was definitely more confident on the roads today and am getting better with the whole driver on the wrong side thing, plus it wasn’t pouring rain so that helped. I’ve even stopped turning on the windshield wipers when trying to activate the turn signal! Just wait until I get home though and start putting my car in neutral and reverse while driving from getting used to it…

Now what is in Matamata you ask? Hobbiton. That’s right, the famous Shire set of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Before I go on, I must confess, I am not actually that familiar with the trilogy. When the first movie came out, I went to see it (on a first date) and spent the entire time pestering my poor date about the plot because I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. I haven’t seen any of the other movies. I later tried to read the book, but $25 in library fines later gave up and took it back because I found it equally confusing. So why did I go to Hobbiton? Because when I saw pictures it looked pretty and seemed like a cool novelty. And, holy crap, am I glad I went!!!

Hobbiton is magical. It is built into an actual working sheep and cattle farm. Peter Jackson and the farm’s owners worked very closely together and the farm owner still lives in a dwelling on-site. As the guide first led us into the shire, our first glimpse of Hobbiton, she pointed to the house on top, Bilbo’s house, and said that we were standing in the spot where he was filmed running out of his little hole yelling, “I’m going on an adventure!” Woah. It felt so right to hear that as I was starting my own adventure (I decided yesterday didn’t count, today was a fresh start). And I was hooked from that moment on, I even want to see the movies now… Hearing the stories of the filming and the manipulation of the sets was fascinating. I loved every minute of it. It was so gorgeous and so peaceful, I wish I could live there. Also crazy, on a tour of 30 people, there were four other people (two couples) on the tour that were not only from California, but from the Sacramento area! One couple lived in Sacramento and the other in Colfax. Super crazy small world. Made me really glad I was there to even things out, because they weren’t exactly who I would want representing home… The tour guides were also great. I was talking with the main guide about travel and she told me that she’s figured out where she doesn’t want to visit based on the pain in the ass people she gets on the tours! I didnt’ dare ask her if she planned to visit the US. I could write a ton more about Hobbiton. But I won’t tonight, maybe a follow-up at another time.

As the tour was coming to an end and we were busing back I prayed for cell service so I could figure out where to go from there. It was about 50 minutes to Rotorua from Matamata and I had nothing else planned yet. Fate was kind to me as there was an i-Site (informational visitor guide person) at the Hobbiton car park. I grabbed a Rotorua official visitor guide and started flipping through. And the plan started to come together, I determined my next destination and hit the road. Speaking of the roads some more. Holy fucking roundabouts Batman. There are roundabouts EVERYWHERE. We’re talking even on the highways, all of a sudden, roundabout! I have driven 3 hours since leaving Auckland and have literally only come across four stoplights, everything else, roundabouts. And the Kiwi take speed limits and passing lanes very seriously. Absolutely nobody stays in a passing lane unless they are actually passing and I don’t think I’ve had a car in front of me going more than 5 km over the speed limit. And they seem to pretty much always use their turn signals! Love them!

I made my way down to Rotorua to Te Puia. It’s a geothermal park featuring geysers, bubbling mud, steaming vents, and awesomeness. There are no words or pictures that can properly capture the wonder. Nature is fucking amazing. To think that the magma at the core of this earth is making its way out through these geothermal wonders is a total trip. On one little terrace alone there are 6 geysers, 5 of them actually active. There is a great little guide about the timing of each of them and the chains in which they erupt, it is posted in numerous locations. This is a key point now. As I walked up to one of the main viewing areas a man grumbled, “Good luck seeing anything, I’ve been here for 2 hours waiting and nothing.” I was confused at first since it looked to me like there were at least two of the geysers actively erupting at that moment! And also very amused that he was upset that nature wasn’t running quite on time. I figured he must have been talking about Kereru which was off to the side and said to only erupt “occasionally.” I hung around for a few minutes watching in wonder as Te Tohu and Pohutu were releasing pressure from the earth and bringing our earth’s core to the sky. I hung around for a bit and sure enough was lucky to see Kereru release as well. The grumbler was still nearby so I walked in his direction and said that his grumbling must have paid off because there she was! He looked at me like I was crazy and said those couldn’t be the geysers, they were too small. Alright dude, whatever. I rolled my eyes and continued on. As I looped back by later there were NO geysers erupting and the man still sitting there annoyed. I’m not sure which I was more in awe of for a moment, the beauty of nature or the wonder of human ignorance. We just saw three geysers erupting and he refused to acknowledge that they were actually geysers because they weren’t big enough??? The signs even said how large to expect them to be! All in all, Te Puia was awesome. Steam rising from the earth and bubbling mud and pools of water everywhere you turned.

While there I got HUNGRY. I mean, really hungry. I realized I had only eaten some fruit, some nuts, and a protein bar so far and had already logged about 6 miles. There is a little cafe on site so I stopped by and opted for a traditional Maori (the Maori are the only tribal inhabitants of New Zealand) Hangi meal of smoked chicken, kumara (still don’t know what that is), potato, pumpkin, and more. Hangi is the Maori traditional method of smoking food in giant pits underground. When the plate came out it didn’t look pretty but holy crap. It was hands down one of the best meals I have ever had. And without a doubt the best chicken I have ever tasted in my life. The depth of the smokiness from the Hangi method is out of this world. I would pay the access fee to the geothermal park again just to have that meal.

After leaving Te Puia, I decided it was going to be a geothermal day and headed down the road a bit to Wai-o-Tapu, billed as a thermal wonderland. Wai-o-Tapu did not disappoint either. Though similar in geothermal activity to Te Puia, the features visible were distinct. Wai-o-Tapu was a wonderland of craters and crazy colorful warm “lakes” created by the geothermal activities. Again, pictures cannot do it justice. I wondered around in awe thinking “how lucky am I” to get to experience this. I took a bunch of pictures at first but the pictures are almost insulting in their inability to capture the essence. I highly recommend that anyone and everyone take the opportunity to discover and experience geothermal/volcanic features if ever possible. Talk about putting things in perspective.

After Wai-o-Tapu I headed back into town and went to Kuirau Park. At first glance, Kuirau just looks like a regular lush grassy park with some gardens in the middle of the town. Until you notice all the signs “Danger! Thermal Area!” And “Danger! Keep on walking path due to thermal activity!” And sure enough, once you look around, there are little fenced off areas throughout the park, some no larger than 4 ft square, with steam vents pushing out of the ground! They also have warm spring foot baths in the park. After logging a couple more miles at least at Wai-o-Tapu that sounded amazing. I found one of the baths, took my hiking shoes off, and slid my feet right in. The warm water felt amazing on my feet and calves. But then it started to get busy, a large group came over and I saw some ugly feet. I hate feet. And then I started thinking about god knows what’s on those ugly feet. And god knows what’s in the water. So that was the end of that.

After spending about five hours on geothermal exploring I figured it was time for a change of scenery so I made my way to the Rotorua tree walk. A network of cable bridges hanging from redwood trees high above the forest floor. I had seen pictures and knew that night was the most beautiful as you could do the course after dark and they illuminated parts of the forest and had large beautiful wooden carved lanterns amongst the trees. It was after 6 so I figured dark would be descending soon and it was a good time to go. Wrong. I started about 6:45, the whole thing really should’ve only taken me 20 minutes and realized that I was too early, it was still light out. Forgot about that whole being summer part. Normally I am not the kind of person to read all the educational signs but this time I had time to kill so by god I read and re-read and contemplated every informational sign I came across. And I actually learned a lot. There is a lot of California in that forest! Apparently Sequoias and Radiata pines are main trees used to replenish the forests of New Zealand! Here I was, in freaking New Zealand, standing on a platform tethered to a Giant Sequoia!

Sequoias or not, it still wasn’t getting dark yet so I decided to plant my booty on a bridge and wait it out so I could see the beautiful lights dammit. Thankfully I seemed to be the only person out there so this wasn’t a problem. I spent 40 minutes with my ass planted up there, going through the photos I’d taken today and contemplating life. And it still wasn’t dark enough. And I was hungry again. So I took some “eh” pictures of what would soon become pretty twinkling lights and decided to go find dinner somewhere.

If anyone has actually read this far, thank you! I know this is long and rambling and probably not particularly interesting but I’m loving writing again, even just about my own meandering day. Tomorrow should be a good one. I’ll start the morning at Hell’s Gate with another geothermal hike followed by a mud bath, sulphur spa, and traditional Maori style massage. Can’t wait to see what else tomorrow has in store for me…