Rotorua - day two

Like I said, Rotorua isn't short of things to do. In the morning we went to Wai-O-Tapu thermal area, where you get to walk around surreal landscapes filled with bubbling volcanic action. The big attraction of this area is Lady Knox geyser, one of only a few geysers you can see spouting water up into the air on a regular basis. And it's very regular - going off at a convenient 10:15 every morning (except Christmas Day). If you're thinking this is suspiciously well organised then you'd be right. Nature is far too unreliable when it comes to pleasing expectant crowds of lucrative tourists, so the staff at Wai-O-Tapu give it a little helping hand. It was discovered a while ago that if you drop a bar of carbolic soap down the top of a geyser it goes off about 5 minutes later. Don't ask me why it does - this isn't "New Scientist". Also don't ask me why someone was wandering along in the forest and came across a hole in the ground and thought "That looks like a good soap dish...". But put the soap down they did, and sure enough five minutes later a great big stream of steamy water gushed out. The next thought they had was "this looks like a great place for a gift shop!" and so Wai-O-Tapu was born.






In the afternoon we went off to do some whitewater rafting down one of the category 5 rapids - category 6 rapids are only suitable for the highly experienced and insane, category 7 rapids are only suitable for corpses. The one we did featured a 7 metre waterfall (Okere Falls) which is the highest raftable waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere. Not bad seeing as none of us had done rafting before, and 66% of us had managed to fall out of a kayak just the day before.



Fortunately we didn't flip over like one in eight rafts do that go down the waterfall. I'm the guy in the middle with the brown shorts.
They were blue when we started.

I was told by one of the guides to lean back for the camera and do a "hang10" sign. I had no idea what a hang 10 sign was, but this is what I chose. I am aware that this means something quite rude in Spain, and for this I apologise.


After the rafting we seriously needed to relax so we went to the thermal spa. I was wrong about Lake Rotorua being the source of the eggy smell in the town. It comes from the thermal spa and anyone who bathes there.