Geothermal Activity

Rotorua is a town in the only other area of the world that has geothermal activity like that of Yellowstone National Park.  The difference is that the various geothermal areas are privately-owned so you have to decide which features you would like to see the most.  Jake and I chose one that had numerous hot pools, mud pots, and a geyser like Old Faithful (well kind of like it....).  Its name was Wai-O-Tapu, Thermal Wonderland.

Notice the two of us in the reflection.

Here is some of the beautiful scenery that we saw.

 

At 10 am, we headed to a different area of the "wonderland" to see the Lady Knox Geyser.  This is when it got a little interesting for us...

 

The Park Ranger came out and talked about geysers and told us that this particular geyser wasn't very predictable.  He went on to explain that he would be adding organic soap to the geyser to make it go off for the tourists.  (Jake and I couldn't believe it.  For people from the Yellowstone Park area, you can understand our surprise that a Park Ranger would put something down a geyser to make it go off.  It seemed tremendously funny to us.)

Here is the park ranger carefully putting the soap down the geyser.

Soap bubbles!

And there she blows!

You can see Jake's excitement!

Kim wanted her photo taken in front of the geyser just like everyone else.

After leaving the "wonderland" park. we stayed in Rotorua for another night.  This time in a hostel.  We were able to dry out all of our gear from the night before so it worked out great.  Before leaving Rotorua, we stopped at the local thermal park that is open to the public.  

 The whole area is geothermal underneath so you had to be careful.

Jake posing next to some geothermal carnage in the park.  They tried to mark a new geothermal spot with orange cones.  They melted.

All in all, Rotorua was definitely worth the stop.

Off to Rotorua

Does anyone recognize this mountain?  For those Lord of the Rings junkies....it is Mount Doom.  It is actually one mountain in a series of three mountains that you see while you are driving along one of the highways on the North Island.

Having a picnic next to Lake Taupo.  We had some visitors stop by.

Jake couldn't resist feeding them.

Then they came closer....

With the whole family.....They got a little too close for comfort and were getting aggressive.  We decided it was time for our picnic to be over and for us to continue driving.

We took a brief stop at Huka Falls, outside of Taupo.

Another view from Huka Falls.

This was our craziest camping adventure yet.  We were camping next to a small lake outside of Rotorua.  It started raining at 8:30 pm and it didn't stop until morning.  We got like 7 inches over night!  And we were in our little tent.  Needless to say, neither of us slept very well.  Visions of flashfloods and our tent drifting away filled our heads.  Praise the Lord our tent stayed dry on the inside.  We later found out that it was the most rain that the town had received in one night since 1969!  There had been all kinds of warnings about not driving that night due to flash-flooding and whatnot.  Little did we know since we were in the middle of nowhere that night...

This pond didn't exist the day before.

Landslide carnage.  What an adventure!

Wellington

We stayed in Wellington for a few days with some friends of Kim's parents.  Lynn was a great hostess and took us to see many of the sights around Wellington.

The first sight that we took in was the Te Papa Museum in downtown Wellington.  It was free to go to and was fascinating to tour.

 The two of us outside of the museum.

Inside the museum.  There were numerous life-size replicas of New Zealand animals.

 Here is a replica of a weta, the large bugs that were in the glowworm cave at Abel Tasman.  Underneath  it is a portion of the replica of a meter long earthworm with glow-in-the-dark insides.

Here is Jake with the world's largest squid.

Here is Kim posing next to a replica of a moa.  Moas were large birds that used to live in New Zeland.  They are now extinct.

This is an example of a Maori temple.  They had an entire wing of the museum dedicated to the Maori people and their way of life.  There were numerous jade carvings as well.

 A fountain in the middle of town.

The skyline  of Wellington is in the distance.

We went to the Weta Cave workshop.  This is a design studio that became world-renown for working on Lord of the Rings.  Since then they have also designed Avatar, King Kong, and the Chronicles of Narnia, to name a few.

 Jake next to a statue of Gollum.

Kim posing by another Lord of the Rings statue surrounded by knives and swords that were actually used in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Believe it or not, if the knife is in its sheath, it is made of rubber and, if it is being wielded in the air, it is aluminum.  Aah...Hollywood....

 

This is Sauron's actual costume.  It looks big and heavy but all of the chainmail used in the Lord of the Rings is actually plastic.

 These were all part of a store were you could buy all kinds of memorabilia, including an exact replica of "The Ring."

 Or one of these highly sought-after statues.

 These were some of the props used in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe."

We looked around the small shop/museum and watched a 20-minute movie on how they make the movie sets and props.  We were not able to tour the actual workshops because of the hidden Hollywood secrets that they hold.

Off to the North Island

We drove our rental car onto the Interislander Ferry and settled in for a three hour journey through Marlborough Sounds and over Cook Strait to the North Island.

Saying goodbye to the South Island.

 An identical ferry that passed us enroute to the North Island.

 Beautiful scenery.

 

Anyone need a taxi?

We saw several sailboats.

The open water

 Arriving in Wellington on the North Island

Jake smiling right before getting off of the ferry to a new land of adventures.