I got up early this morning and headed down to our hotel lobby to get the barista to make us flat whites. While I was down there I wondered if the large breakfast buffet was actually part of our reservation. It is. Silly us. The flat whites were still necessary to help us wake up. We did enjoy the breakfast buffet. It wasn’t overwhelmingly delicious but the variety was marvelous and I got to enjoy a golden kiwi, slightly different from the kiwi grown in California.
We headed for the Redwood Tree Walk and Glowworm experience. The Redwood Tree Walk is walk through the Redwood trees 20 yards up, 7 1/2 football fields long with 28 suspension bridges. Gayle knew she wasn’t going to be able to walk that far so she headed in the wrong direction so she could go a short distance and wait for me to come around. This is Gayle disobeying the rules.
California Redwoods were introduced to this area in 1901. They grow faster here in Rotorua but because they do they are not a hardwood like we have in California. They are considered a soft wood here. Only eight people are allowed on a suspension bridge at a time. Only 20 people on the platforms in between the bridges.
A specialist climbing team from Germany was brought in to aid in the construction of the treewalk. The walkway is suspended from the trees using a specially designed sling that wraps around the Redwood trunks without causing harm to the trees. The slings can be easily adjusted to allow for the growth of the trees.
An artist was brought in to design hanging “lanterns” that light up the walkway at night. It is a very popular nighttime attraction. Since our time in Rotorua has been truncated we are not sure that we will be able to swing back by there tonight to experience the walkway at night.
Under the Redwoods the ground is covered in lush ferns.
I found the experiencing a bit intimidating….not terrifyingly so…just a bit daunting. New Zealand currently is enjoying a two week school holiday and the place was crawling with children trying desperately not to break the rule and run on the bridges but having a hard time not doing so. I eventually met up with Gayle and we headed off the walkway to the glowworm experience.
There are many glowworm caves in this area but must of them require you to ride a boat down some rapids in a dark cave. Another one requires that you get down on all fours and crawl through a hole to get inside the cave. We were not interested in either of these so we chose the easy to walk through a man made cave. Luckily the glowworms are real.
We had a lovely guide for just the two of us. We watched a short information film on the life cycle of a glowworm. They are cannibals so only about 10-13% of eggs make it to adulthood. Those that make it are wormlike in appearance. They glow brighter when they are hungry. As you can see in this photo I took, some of the glowworms are brighter/hungrier than the others.
This is a close up of a couple of glowworms that have put out long string like strands to catch bugs for them to eat….like a web only in string form.
Eventually, they form a cocoon. When they hatch they look like mosquitoes. They have no stomachs are mouths as adult glowworms. They have one job. The job of the male is to impregnate the female….and then die. The job of the female is to lay her eggs…and then die. It was an interesting tour that didn’t involve me crawling through a small hole
We realized last night that we are right around the corner from Lake Rotorua, the largest lake in the Southern Hemisphere. We can’t leave here without seeing it. So we headed down to see it. We found this Māori war canoe memorial.
We sat by the lake and enjoyed watching the black swans.
Being next to water is my zen place.
The wind sock next to the lake showed no current wind activity. I wonder what it will look like on Sunday when the expected cyclone blows through this part of New Zealand.
Our guide at Hobbiton yesterday told us about a church in Rotorua with a stained glass of a Māori Jesus. I looked it up last night and it looked like a white Jesus with traditional Māori clothing. It didn’t have visiting hours available during the Fall months. We did see the church in its beautiful setting on the lake.
We headed back to the room. We have a reservation for a traditional Māori experience at 4 p.m. that lasts for 41/2 hours. Gayle needed to rest her back and I wanted to do our laundry. With the change in our schedule we will no longer be staying at the hotel we originally reserved in Christchurch. At our new hotel we will not have laundry facilities at our disposal. While Gayle rested I headed over to a nearby cafe to try out a hangi pie. Hangi is a traditional way to cook food using heated rocks buried in a pit oven. A hangi pie is meat or vegetables wrapped inside a phyllo like crust. It was delicious.
We were picked up in front of our hotel and driven to Te Puia. Gayle asked for a wheelchair for the guided tour so much of her experience was at the tail end of the tour where it was hard to hear and see. Ian was our Māori guide.
We toured the Māori Arts and Crafts Institute where Māori students learn the craft of woodcarving, weaving and stone & bone carving.
There is a Kiwi Conservation Centre on the site. Kiwi are an endangered species. We got to see a kiwi, in a darkened habitat, but we were not allowed to take any photos. They are nocturnal and nearly blind, making them easy prey for predators.
I found the mud pools fascinating. I wish I could add a video to this blog to give you the full impact of this bubbling caldron of mud.
The last stop on our guided tour was the Pohutu geyser.
We asked Ian if they are afraid of a volcanic eruption. He said they are not because they have all these steam vents which relieves the pressure. The whole area has steam rising from it. When we arrived at the geyser we were told that it would erupt in 15 minutes or less. So we waited. It was hot there. You could sit down on the stone steps if you wanted a warm butt.
It wasn’t as spectacular as Old Faithful at Yellowstone but it was fun to watch it shoot up.
We were then loaded on a trolley and returned to the restaurant for a truly amazing buffet. I would like to share everything I ate but I don’t relish your condemnation so I will hit the highlights. I loved the Kanga porridge which I would suggest tasted like the creamed corn dish served at Thanksgiving. I didn’t take any of the hangi since I had enjoyed that at lunch. I tried the fry bread but I am not a fan. There were also many dishes I know weren’t traditionally Maori but they were excellent: chow mein, crème brûlée, chocolate covered crème puffs, etc. While we savored our dinner the sunset took over the sky. I rushed outside to get a couple photos. This is Pohutu Geyser.
The sky above the community building was beautiful.
After dinner we were ushered to the community building for a performance of Maori culture, which began with a member of the audience being named our chief and becoming part of a ritual of accepting a peace symbol from a Maori warrior.
We all filed into the building for a demonstration of Maori music and dance.
We were back in our room by 8 p.m. and ready for bed. We need to be up early tomorrow to fly to Christchurch to avoid a cyclone.
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