Down Under Day 15: Rotorua to Auckland to Sydney

In addition to the main exhibits at Waiotapu, along the walking trails, there are two other sights a short drive from the visitor center. Yesterday, we didn't hit either the mud pools or Lady Knox geyser, because we arrived too late to see the geyser's daily 1015a eruption. This morning we sought to rectify this.

We checked out of the hostel fairly early (by our standards), got to Waiotapu around 945, bought breakfast and drove over to the geyser. I was curious how the geyser came to have such a precisely regular eruption time, and we soon found out. A few minutes before the geyser was supposed to erupt, a member of the Waiotapu staff came out with a small pack under his arm and gave a short, funny presentation of the geyser's history. Apparently, the "thermal wonderland" used to be a prison colony. The convicts, who had been set to work planting trees (now the world's largest manmade forest, right next to Waiotapu), discovered this hot spring and irregular geyser, and thought it would be a good place to bathe. To their surprise, shortly after they soaped up, the geyser blew!

Apparently the formation under Lady Knox geyser consists of two vertically stacked chambers of water. The lower chamber is superheated, but kept from boiling and erupting by the upper, cold chamber of water. Breaking the surface tension between the layers allows the chambers to mix and causes an explosion! A couple minutes into the talk, our presenter raised up the pack he had carried in, called it an "environmentally friendly surfactant", and threw it into the hole. As he spoke, the geyser began sudsing over like a overfull dishwasher. It was explained that the cone shape of the geyser is also artificial: the prisoners decided to stack up rocks around the geyser in order to get more height out of it. Shortly after throwing in the trigger, our speaker decided to clear out:



Why is there soap coming out of this geyser? Aliens.

As promised, a couple minutes later, the geyser blew. Geysers are cool. No, literally - the water that sprayed down on us wasn't warm at all.




We hung around watching the eruption and taking pictures for ten or fifteen minutes and then decided, as the geyser continued to erupt, that we were fountained-out. And then, when we got back to the parking lot, disaster. The drive into the geyser parking lot had been a little noisy, and now we knew why -- flat tire:



Some teamwork ensued. A nail in the tire was the culprit. Fortunately, our Corolla came with a full-size spare, so driving on the spare all the way back to Auckland would be no problem. After the geyser, we spent a few minutes checking out the mud pools, and then hit the road back for Auckland. The drive was alright, but not as nice as the previous day's drive from Te Kuiti. I had hoped to visit the Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland, but by the time we made it to the city, we had barely enough time to get lunch before heading back to the airport.

We went out to the Ponsonby neighborhood, which we had not previously seen. Unfortunately, there wasn't really any time for sightseeing -- we ate some Asian fusion food and immediately hit the road for the airport. Luckily, the rental car return is immediately adjacent to the international terminal, so there was no delay there.

I was pretty excited for our flight back to Sydney on Emirates; not only are they generally a pretty good carrier, but we were flying on a shiny new A380, the largest passenger aircraft in the world.



Two full decks. People, this isn't an airplane, it's an airship.

As we waited to board, I noticed the amusing departure status board at AKL:


Flight's not boarding yet? Then, "relax"!




AKL is future-proofing already, with tarmac markings for the Boeing 787




Everything about the A380 is big, even the windows. You could play a credible game of ultimate out on the wings.

The flight to Sydney was nice and uneventful. I watched The Hunger Games.

Down Under Day 14: Te Kuiti to Rotorua

Before I continue, a note on our accommodations for the past couple of nights. Waitomo is a pretty small place. There aren't that many places to stay, and even fewer that are bookable online. We ended up staying at the Panorama Motor Inn in Te Kuiti, and I loved it. The staff are very friendly and helpful, and seem genuinely pleased to be helping you out. It's not a good place to stay if you want an impersonal, anonymous hotel. There are only a handful of units; we scored a 1bd apartment with three beds; tons of space. Totally recommended if you have a small group going to Waitomo. The view lives up to the name too:







We checked out around 10am and got underway to Rotorua. It probably had to do, at least partially, with the lighting today (patchy clouds and intermittent sunny rain), but this was a marvelously pretty drive. I don't think it beats the Banff-Jasper drive or the Alaska Highway, but it was right up there. Who's up for a lap of New Zealand?

The Rotorua area is a volcanic zone, and the main attraction here for decades has been the thermal features. One of the biggest collections of these features is at the Waiotapu thermal park (more recently rebranded as the Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland). Just have a look at the landscape behind the visitor center: there's a lot of stuff going on.



The park has three connecting loop trails (of increasing time and difficulty, though none of them is particularly difficult unless you need a cane or wheelchair, in which case the third trail isn't for you). As you go through, you see a number of craters, formed where underground thermal activity produced a subsidence (from the activity of water or sulfuric acid), hot pools full of colorful mineral deposits, sulfur caves, and generally a lot of interesting environments. It's infinitely amusing to stand by a bubbling crater, or a fumarole, or even random points on the walking path that are hissing and bubbling over. (You will eventually tire of the hydrogen sulfide smell, but that's a different matter.)







All this thermal activity is put to good use; in the far distance from the park, you can see a geothermal power plant's cooling tower.



The random warm spots caused by fumaroles and hot springs lead to really interesting variation in vegetation. Often, you'll see a patch of warm-weather plants, like ferns, in the middle of a patch of temperate forest, signifying the presence of a warm spot. Of course, sometimes instead you'll see a dead patch of white plants in the middle of some living ones, showing a thermal site that had some toxic gas emissions.




The Devil's Bath, right at the end of the tour, is a crazy bright-green pool that shifts hue depending on the lighting. It's the sort of color I'd only ever seen in pictures of toxic mining runoff pools, but it's all-natural. (I still wouldn't advise bathing in it, unless your name is Beelzebub).




After Waiotapu, we drove 30km north to Rotorua proper to check into our hotel, the Rotorua Central Backpackers. Lunch was had at a takeaway place just down the corner, which has been in business for over 30 years and won numerous awards for its fries. The kumara (sweet potato) fries were, in fact, delicious. The place was also decorated with sweet signs:






Rotorua is built on the edge of a lake filling an old volcanic caldera, and thermal activity pervades the city. The whole place smells faintly (or sometimes not so faintly) of hydrogen sulfide, and apparently every so often the cold taps will run hot! After lunch, we walked out to Kairau Park, one of the two big parks in Rotorua, and a major hotspot of thermal activity itself.

As you approach the park from the east, there's little to indicate that it's that different from any other park. A couple stands of trees are fenced off, but that's nothing weird. Then you see the signs on the fences warning you to stay out of the thermal area and to stick to the footpaths. The features on the edges of the park are a couple small hot pools. As you go deeper, you see more and more: large hot pools, fumaroles, craters, mud pots, even a couple concrete pools connected by pipes to natural hot springs so that visitors can soak their feet. There are a few walking trails that wind among the fenced-off thermal areas, with informative signs about the local flora and ecology.



This pile of rocks has a fumarole at its base, producing a steam volcano effect




This boardwalk looks like something out of a horror movie.

Next, we headed back east to the Government Gardens, the other big park in Rotorua, that borders the lake. The Rotorua Museum is here, and it's a very nice building. Can't say much more, since it was closed by the time we showed up. The gardens are a bit bare in the winter, but barring one hot spring, whose waters are piped to the Polynesian Spa in the park, you could almost forget you're in a volcanic area as you go for your lakefront stroll.



Rotorua Museum

You could forget, that is, until you reach the lake itself. This is no Lake Tahoe, pristine blue and lined with grass and sandy beaches. This lake is volcanic, through and through. As you get close to the shore, you see more thermal features and general moonscapes. As the sun was setting, we decided to abandon our lakeside hike and head back to the hostel.



Lake Rotorua shore

For dinner tonight, I felt like being economical, like eating lamb (when in NZ...), and conveniently, like cooking. We hit up the local Pak 'N Save, and thirty dollars later had all the ingredients for dinner. Rotorua Central Backpackers has a nicely equipped kitchen; soon thereafter Meat Fest 2012 continued apace with lamb loin and shoulder chops seasoned with salt and pepper and fried in garlic butter, garlic bread, and OJ. All were in agreement that it was one of the best dinners so far on the trip, and certainly the cheapest.



Hail to the chef.

Down Under Day 13: Waitomo

Our day started with disaster. For the first time this trip, we actually encountered winter weather. Rain is a small problem when you want to do things outdoors, and a bigger problem when you want to do adventure sports like black water rafting. When we arrived for our cave rafting trip in Waitomo Caves this morning, this is what we saw:




Horror! So, instead of the awesome rafting trip, we had to settle for some damp wandering through caves. This turned out pretty well.

The Waitomo area is known for its series of beautiful limestone caves, through which visitors are encouraged to walk (...or raft), while checking out fancy stone formations like everyone's favorites, stalactites:



While limestone caves can be found all over the world, what really sets Waitomo apart is that its caves are home to a fly (the fungus gnat Arachnocampa luminosa), the larval stage of which glows a faint blue-green; hence the name glowworm. The glowworms attach to the ceiling of the cave and hang down sticky lines in which to catch their prey, passing flying insects. The colony's glow resembles a night sky, drawing mosquitoes upwards, into the traps.



Glowworms in Ruakuri Cave, Waitomo


Glowworm "fishing lines"

Our tour included three caves. The first, the Waitomo Glowworm Cave, has appropriately enough the largest population of glowworms, but not as much in the way of cave rock features. We did get to go out on a boat in the subterranean river, and appreciate a sea of glowworms above us for about five minutes of darkness; however, because of the rain, the water level was too high, and we couldn't ride the boat all the way out of the cave like usual. Stupid weather! Cameras were also prohibited inside this cave.

The second cave was Ruakuri Cave, with dramatic rock features, a 90ish minute walking tour, and plenty more glowworms to be seen. This time, cameras were allowed, and there was enough time at each spot for me to try getting some dark glowworm pictures. The one above was about a fifteen second exposure.

Ruakuri also had some fossils embedded inside the limestone:



Finally, we drove up the road to Aranui Cave. The smallest of the three, it's only a ten dollar supplement on top of a Waitomo+Ruakuri combo, and worth it. It's a short tour, but you do get to see some dramatic rock formations, and the mood is generally a bit more relaxed than in Ruakuri. No glowworms, though -- no insects deep enough in Aranui for them to feed on.



Rock formation in Aranui Cave

Once we'd finished with the caves, it was time for lunch, and we had massive amounts of time to kill. There's not a whole lot to do around here when it's raining other than the caves. We were staying in Te Kuiti, a town about 10km south of the road to Waitomo Caves (and, they claim, the world's sheep shearing capital, or at least home to the fastest shearer in the world). 10km north is another, rival town, Otorohanga, the Kiwiana (think Americana, but New Zealand) capital of the world. We decided to head north, and got some fried chicken and Kiwiana for our trouble. The main street in Otorohanga has a number of Kiwiana displays on the history of milk in schools, rugby, women's suffrage, and the history of the Pavlova, a meringue-based dessert. It was all interesting (and amusing at the same time); it sort of reminded me of the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.




We didn't do much in the evening other than read and watch the Olympics, since there wasn't a lot to do in Te Kuiti. A drive down main street yielded nothing, other than some Indian takeout for dinner.

Down Under Day 12: Auckland to Te Kuiti

Before I start talking about the day, a few words about our hotel, the Auckland City Hotel on Hobson St. It's a perfectly fine hotel (not sure it's a proper four stars like they claim, but certainly 3-3.5), and very reasonably priced (coming out comparable or cheaper than hostels would have). It's just a little...weird. It seems to be run by a company that is also affiliated with a ministry (evidenced by the Bible quotation by the elevator) as well as a tech consultancy. Seen from the Sky Tower, the building looks huge, but internally it's laid out a bit weird, and there doesn't seem to be that much accessible space. The windows in the rooms are incredibly drafty for modern construction (they're worse than the ancient wood-frame windows of my apartment back home), but they compensate for this by adding heavy curtains and putting TWO space heaters in the room (I can't imagine the electric bills in this place). The remote works, but doesn't seem to control the TV. The staff were friendly and helpful (though they charged me NZD 35 a night for a sofabed that I suspect was going to be in the room anyway), and none of these things were showstoppers; they're just...weird.

Anyway, last night I was feeling sick and tired again, so instead of going out, we went to the Malaysian restaurant in the hotel. It was good, but nothing particularly special.

Today our plan was to visit the Auckland War Memorial Museum before picking up the car nearby at 4. This left us plenty of time for a late start, so we watched some Olympics and checked out around 11. Grabbed some döner kebabs on the way to the sci-fi themed movie theater on Queen St. The theater has cool architecture (all 50s swoopy rocket stuff inside) and can be taken in in under five minutes -- which we did, and continued east towards the Domain park.

In the park, we dawdled around the Wintergarden for a while. It has two greenhouses, one for moderate and one for tropical climates, and has a nice collection of flowers and fruits (including some interestingly shaped chili peppers -- it is left as an exercise to the reader to find the appearance of the Peter's Pecker pepper).



After the Wintergarden, we walked a few minutes over to the Auckland Museum. We took a while to get here (finally arriving around 1 or so) because I figured that it would only take a few hours to get through the exhibits. Boy, was I wrong. The Auckland War Memorial Museum is really big, with three floors containing dramatically different exhibits. Half of the ground floor is dedicated to Māori and Pacific exhibits; the rest had varied exhibits on topics ranging from design to old musical instruments to wildlife photography. I didn't even make it to the second floor, but I'm told it has natural history exhibits. Finally, the third floor, which I had to race through in a half hour, has exhibits on the various wars in which New Zealand has taken part, both domestic and foreign.

The Māori exhibits on the ground floor are really interesting and give a good background for someone with no background on the Māori or their history. There's a huge selection of wood carvings and even a couple entire buildings located inside.


A Māori meeting hall, with woven walls and carved supports




While we were at the museum, we also took the opportunity to see a Māori cultural show, exhibiting traditional song, dance, and games. Of course, the highlight was the haka dance:

There should be a video here, but I can't get the upload to work...

After the Māori galleries, I spent quite a while going through the wildlife photography exhibit. This shark has the world's happiest fish-hook-related deformity:



Finally, I realized that I was running out of time, so I headed upstairs to the war exhibits. I'm pretty much a sucker for WW2 exhibits, especially the propaganda posters.



Mechanical things are also a weakness of mine, so seeing fully restored Spitfire and Zero fighters was awesome!



Japanese Zero fighter




RAF Spitfire

After the museum, we walked over to the car rental to pick up our ride for the next few days, a red Toyota Corolla hatchback. Shamefully, I went for the automatic version; I figured trying to change gear with the wrong hand while also paying attention to driving on the wrong side of the road for the first time might be a little much. Happily, driving on the highway isn't all that different here, and about two and a half hours after leaving Auckland, we arrived at our motel in Te Kuiti.

Down Under Day 11: Auckland

I remember the first time I heard of Auckland. It was an episode of Full House, in which the Olsen twins find their way onto a plane, thinking it's headed to nice and close Oakland, and subsequently find out it's headed all the way to New Zealand. Since then, I've wondered what lay on the other end of that plane, and today I got to start to find out.

We began the day with a visit to the Sky Tower, a giant tower that is part of the Sky City hotel/restaurant/casino complex, and which is the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere (standing a few tens of meters taller than Sydney Tower).





There are two observation decks on the tower, at 198 and 220 meters. The view is fantastic (and roughly the same) from both. Probably the biggest advantage to going higher is that fewer people do so (it costs extra), so it's less crowded. The 360-degree view of the Auckland area is great, especially if you get a nice day like we did.






One floor down from the lower observation deck is a cafe, which surprisingly was quite reasonably priced. We had some sandwiches and lasagna while looking out over Auckland.





We actually didn't have very many things on the itinerary for today. EJ wanted to see the Sky Tower, Omar wanted to see the University of Auckland, and I wanted to see the Museum of Transport and Technology (until I learned it was clear across town). After walking around the University's campus, we went through the adjacent Albert Park, admiring old cannon and gnarled trees.




Having nothing else to do, we walked back towards our hotel, when we ran into the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, which had on a special exhibit of Pacific art from artists based in Auckland.




In addition to Pacific art, the museum also had an interesting collection of contemporary art from European artists, such as the visual Environment, an enclosed room with mirrored floor and ceiling, and a steel hoop kinetic sculpture manipulated by electromagnets.

Down Under Day 10 Addendum: Brisbane to Auckland

A couple addenda to day 10, showing that you shouldn't call the day a wrap until it actually is.

First, some kangaroos just hanging out on a bench in the Brisbane CBD:





The trip from Brisbane to Auckland was actually pretty pleasant, other than a long, slow line at check-in at BNE. We flew through Sydney, and I got some pretty sweet shots of the city on our approach in. In this one from the north, the bridge is in the middle and the Opera House just left of center.



Because our flights were not booked on the same reservation, we had to collect our bags, transfer to the international terminal, and re-check-in. The inter-terminal bus costs $5.50 per person, so I asked the info desk if it was possible to walk. The response: "well, it's about 4km to international, so I wouldn't suggest it." We paid the $5 per head to take the train instead. We checked in, and then with three hours to kill before boarding, got some döner kebab for lunch before security. Afterwards, we passed security (ah, a civilized country, where the personnel are friendly and you can keep your shoes on), and proceeded as invited to the Air New Zealand lounge.

Air NZ, you're doing it right, unlike United. Full lunch/dinner bar, a hot dog cart, and free Internet access. We shouldn't have gotten lunch outside!





The featured fruit in the Air New Zealand lounge is....drumroll...the kiwi.


Our 767 to Auckland had quite a bit of empty space, so we got to stretch out a bit and enjoy the nice entertainment system on board (United, you taking notes?). The Auckland international terminal has quite a greeting for you as you move from the gates to baggage claim. Kia Ora, indeed.

Down Under Days 8-10: Brisbane

As you might gather from the fact that I'm lumping three full days into one post, things have been pretty relaxed for the last few days. After a long series of early days (in transit and to go diving), taking a couple of rest days was just what we needed. We had to get up pretty early on day 8 (leaving Cairns) for a 750a airport shuttle. After getting into Brisbane just past 1230, we caught the train into the city and made the 10 minute hike up to the Brisbane City Backpackers hostel.

Finding vacancies in Brisbane was nearly impossible when I searched the night before, something I found very surprising for a large city. At check-in, all was explained; apparently there's a major geological conference in town. Quite a few people in the hostel are here for the conference, which isn't something you normally see.

After checking in, we went out for lunch. The destination was the Queen St pedestrian mall, which would turn out to be our main destination the entire trip. Burgers sounded good; Grill'd is an Australian fancy-burger chain somewhat reminiscent of the Counter, but with more premade varieties and less customization. After lunch we walked through the Brisbane Botanic Garden, which was maybe a fifth the size of the one in Sydney, but was still a very nice park. Since I was still sick and somewhat exhausted, I opted to sit around in the sunshine in the park and read a book, and turned Omar and EJ free.



Brisbane waterfront in the park




Mangrove swamp in the Brisbane Botanic Garden. The only mangrove stand in an Australian capital city park.







We met back up for dinner, also just off the Queen St mall, at a grilled chicken place, and then mutually decided to call it a night. I wasn't the only one out of it, because we all slept more or less forever.

Day 9 was mostly spent in the hostel. Omar and EJ left at some point to get lunch (where else, Queen St); I stayed inside working out our plans for New Zealand. Many hours later, after battling with slow Internet connections (seemingly everyone else in the hostel was also inside, and on YouTube) and site downtime (Orbitz: middle of the night in the US is Australian prime time, do some server localization!), we had a plan and bookings made. Because I had a craving for some roti canai, We went back out to Queen St to the Little Singapore restaurant for some grub.









I've been writing this post early in the morning (well, 730) on day 10, watching USA basketball show down against Australia in the quarterfinals. Probably the only US game I'll get to see, since Olympic coverage here is limited to one channel, and only events with Australians in them. Oh well. At least our NBA all-stars turned it on in the fourth quarter.

A side note on equipment, since there's not a whole lot in this post. This trip, I've experimented with not bringing a proper PC along. Instead, I've brought an iPad, with a camera connection kit to transfer photos from SD to the iPad. (protip: get the $8 knockoff on amazon, it works fine; no need to drop $30+ on the official Apple product). These posts have been written and uploaded using BlogPress, a $5 app. It's not perfect, but does most of what I need it to.



Overall, it's worked out pretty well. There have been a few times when I've missed the greater power of a computer: a hotel room with only a wired Ethernet jack, when I've wanted to save a page as PDF rather than as a screenshot, various networking trickery (ahem). The battery life is phenomenal, which is a huge plus.

We're about to head back to BNE to catch a Virgin Australia flight to Sydney, where we will have to claim our bags, change terminals, clear exit customs, and re-check-in for our Air New Zealand flight to Auckland. Hooray.