Heading south

Written: 30/11/06

bed count: 44

So, we have bid farewell to Eirever. We had a great time there and managed to get a decent amount of work done for Dave and Jackie. I think Alec is missing Scooter the cat more than anything. He had a new best mate for a few days there - ahh bless.

On top of productive mornings wwoofing we managed to see some more of the west coast beaches whilst we were in Albany. Took a trip down to Piha one afternoon. It's really beautiful down there which huge breakers rolling in onto the black-sand beach. In the middle of the bay sits Lion Rock, which you can walk to and climb up at low tide. Pretty good view from up there.
Anyhow. Moving on.

We have had a slight change of plan as we have managed to secure 2 successive wwoofs working, in part, on strawbale houses in the coming weeks. So, yesterday we headed south east to Tauranga and Mount Maunganui - places which had been recommended to us - for a few days break before the next wwoof. Mt M is quite pretty but, unfortunately, we had to drive through Tauranga to get there. And Tauranga is not pretty.

After pretty quickly assessing that there wasn't a huge amount to do in the area we headed south to Rotorua.

Now, Rotorua is famous for it's geothermal activity, or for being smelly, depending on how scientific / cruel you want to be. And yes, we knew we were getting closer by the smell. A bit whiffy to say the least. However, it appears to be a very nice place from first impressions. You get used to the smell (i.e. - you stop smelling it) pretty quickly and there are other, much more interesting, side effects of the 'activity'.

One such effect is the steam rising from various vents all over the place. You notice it coming up from drain grates and gardens and the park. Another big bonus is that we're camping on the 'world famous heated tent pitches' at the Cosy Cottage holiday park. It's basically like having underfloor heating in your tent. Cosy indeed. Particulary appreciated since it is currently peeing it down outside... (We seem to have the knack of picking the wrong weather for camping).

Still, we're going to check out the mineral pools in a bit and take a look at the lake and the bath house. Much more to do here than in Tauranga. Thank god.