Sunday, March 27, 2005 (Rotorua – New Zealand NI)


Eggs for breakfast after all. Getting Zorbed for my birthday was the closest thing to being spun in a front-loading washing machine. Flying in the face of what Mother told me about getting dirty and loving every minute of it. Finishing up with a few slices from the carvery.

Day 384 (194). With all the driving I’ve done over the past several days, I was thankful for a bit of relaxation this morning and glad too to be able to start the day slowly. The same breakfast table was laid out again this morning with meagre contents. Actually, that’s not very fair. In fact, there was just about everything on offer except for any cooked foods such as eggs. Not to worry, however, since I thought of this very scenario yesterday and so bought half a dozen eggs to keep me happy this morning – which they did too.

Sandy was keen to make sure I received my birthday present today. Ever since she saw this particular activity in one of the Rotorua advertising brochures, she decided that this was what I was going to get – Zorbed. The Zorb is a huge, three-metre diameter inflated and near transparent ball contained within which is another two-metre diameter inflated ball. Warm water is poured into the inner ball into which you then climb. The hatch is closed and the Zorb is then rolled down a steep hill. It essentially amounts to an extreme water slide ride. You tumble around within the sphere until it makes its way all the way down to the bottom of the hill, where they let you out. It’s sort of like a huge washing machine and for a couple of extra Dollars they’ll put some washing powder in there with you. The Zorb is one of several extreme thrill activities that can be experienced just a short drive North of town. We drove over there this morning to check them all out. In addition to the Zorb company, there is another that offers several other attractions such as bungee jumping, bungee swinging, jet boating and so on. This other company offered different combinations of packages but strangely not the one that we wanted for some reason and they weren’t prepared to budge so we decided that I would just get Zorbed instead. Their inflexibility lost them a customer – their loss, not ours.

We saw one of the Zorb balls rolling down the hill as we approached and it did look quite a bit of fun and so for NZ$45 (€26,10), I signed up and removed from my person everything that I didn’t want to get wet. Shortly thereafter, several other potential victims and I were transported to the top of the hill via jeep. A couple of groups of people went ahead of me (they allow up to three people in a Zorb at a time) and when it was my turn, the inner ball was part filled with pleasantly warm water and I was instructed to dive in. The hatch was then zipped up and I was told to give the Zorb a bit of a start by walking it off the edge. It was a lot of fun and a truly unique experience – probably the closest I will ever come to being inside a front-loading washing machine. I emerged from the Zorb at the bottom feeling just a little bit dizzy and completely soaked through to the skin but with a huge grin on my face.

Our plan for the rest of the day was to spend some time at one of the spas here in town but as we drove back through Rotorua, an arts and crafts fair caught Sandy’s eye and we stopped to stroll through all the market stalls to see what was on offer. It turned out to be more of what we would understand to be a flea market than anything else with little of real interest to travellers such as ourselves. This didn’t stop sandy from picking up a few crystal rocks to add to her collection – a collection that is growing in weight and, I might add, one that I’m tasked with keeping in my backpack.

There were plenty of people about but this didn’t stop us from finding an English pub style restaurant for a spot of lunch. The food was very good so we booked a table there for this evening also, when they are apparently having a blues band performing live.

There are a couple of main spas here in town but everyone has suggested that we try out the Hell’s Gate spa and mud baths complex. The spa and mud baths are annexed next to a thermal park area very similar to the Wai-O-tapu and Waimangu thermal parks that we visited yesterday. Hell’s Gate is also just a short distance outside of town but in the opposite direction to where we went to get Zorbed. They had various combinations of park entrance, mud bath and spa tickets on offer but we decided ultimately that we didn’t need to spend another hour walking through another thermal park so we went with the combination ticket for the spa and mud baths only, at NZ$50 (€29) each. After paying for our tickets and collecting a plastic box each in which to keep our possessions, we were given a brief description of what to expect from the mud bath. I told them that Sandy was pregnant but they insisted that this wasn’t going to be an issue. We were then directed to one of the several mud baths and told to get in. Each bath is about the size of a queen-sized bed and is just under waist deep. The water is very warm and looks like something my Mother would forbid me to get into. It was a very brown and grey colour. At the bottom of the pool, although we couldn’t see any further than about two millimetres into the water, was a layer of mud about one centimetre deep. We were told to pick up handfuls of mud to spread all over our exposed skin. There’s just no other feeling in the world like rubbing mud all over your body and it goes against all your natural instincts you’ve learned from your Mother telling you not to get dirty. It was wonderful and felt absolutely great. We both kept telling each other just how filthy we looked with mud all over us and it was one hell of a laugh. There is sulphur in the spa water so we were careful not to get any mud or water near our eyes. We were also told to allow the mud to dry on our skin so I eventually stood up to try to allow the sloppy mud to dry. It was a bit chilly but the minerals in the spa water and mud are supposed to be very therapeutic and posses healing powers. Amidst all the laughing, we were fortunate enough to remember to grab the camera.

After our allotted twenty-minutes of mud bath time were up, we were told to get under the provided shower to wash it all off again. This was quite a shock to our system since it was a cold shower only. Apparently, this has something to do with locking traces of the mud into your skin to maximise its therapeutic effects. After washing it all away for a couple of minutes under the cold shower, we were allowed into the warm spa pools in the next enclosure. There were just the two pools and both had water that was much cleaner than the mud pools but still murky. A hot, cascading waterfall was running into the one that was then overflowing into the other. Both pools were about four metres by about six metres and a bit deeper than the mud pools. The pool being fed by the hot waterfall was the hotter of the two. Getting into these spa pools following the cold shower was absolutely bliss but I have to admit that I did wonder if this was some sort of interim stage with more pools to follow. Apparently, however, these two pools were all that there were. We spent the next hours or so just sitting in these two spas and relaxing. The thermal park was literally next door and we could quite easily have stepped out of our pool and over into the park, where the now familiar yellow-stained and scorched rocky ground was bubbling away with small pools of boiling water and steam rising from everywhere. It seemed that the hot cascading waterfall that was feeding the upper pool was the same natural spa water that was oozing out from the ground right next to us.

We got into and out of the spas several times to regulate our body temperature but we eventually decided that we’d had enough and showered in the warm water showers provided. After getting dressed and walking out of the spa area, it dawned on us that there was nobody standing by the entrance to the main thermal park area so we somewhat cheekily just wandered on in. It took us about an hour to walk around the thermal park but truthfully, there was nothing new here that we hadn’t already seen at one of the other two parks we visited yesterday. Had we come here first, I’ve no doubt that we would have found this thermal park to be very impressive and awe-inspiring. We made our way back to our B&B to relax before dinner. I spent some time on the computer fixing problems with the operating system (I truly hate Microsoft operating systems with a vengeance).

Our dinner this evening was already planned out from this afternoon and we headed back over to the restaurant, where a carvery dinner waited us. With the blues band in full swing, it was a very relaxing atmosphere and we enjoyed our plentiful meal immensely. They had pork, chicken, beef and lamb on the carving board and the lamb was roasted using a native tree here that is used in traditional Maori culture. It had a very distinctive flavour and was quite delicious.

Back at the B&B, I spent some more time removing viruses and other malware from the computer, for which our host seemed eternally grateful. We had thought about staying here a forth night and visiting another spa tomorrow but instead we’ve decided to visit the famed hot sand beach up in the Coromandel tomorrow afternoon during low tide. The idea is to dig a hole in the sand, sit in it and cover yourself up again. The thermal activity in the sand turns the whole thing into a natural sauna. We will drive up there to do this specifically and then make our way to Auckland to spend the last couple of nights here in New Zealand.

Posted: Sun - March 27, 2005 at 11:40 PM        

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