Happy that we finally could leave our hosts in Taupo but also a bit sad to say good bye to Lisa we made our way to Rotorua, the city which is in the centre of a highly active geothermal area (which is sometimes called “The Ring of Fire”. It is located on the edge between the Pacific and Australian plate which hit each other all the time). This is the reason why Taupo always smells like sulphur, that is to say mouldy eggs, YUMMY! But one step after the other…
The road to Rotorua is called the Thermal Explorer Highway, which is called like that for a reason. Along the highway one could stop every couple of km, just to see a boiling mud hole, see a hot spring or swim in a hot pool. We picked some of them out. First the Waiotapu Mud Pool, which is an ENORMOUS pool consisting of boiling and bubbling mud. So weird! Funny enough we met the Spanish couple from the Tongariro Crossing there. As if that wouldn’t have been weird enough, there is a boiling stream (Otamakokere Stream) just on the other side of the road. Yes, you heard right, a running hot stream which even boils at some points!
Arrived in Rotorua we first walked along Lake Rotorua which gives the city its second (not official though) name: The city of mouldy eggs. If you’re just close to this part of the lake, you instantly recognize the particular smell of mouldy eggs… Funny at the beginning, mainly when you walk along the lake comprising a few boiling mud holes, but if you smell mouldy eggs while buying groceries it becomes a bit disgusting…
As our hosts where on a spontaneous trip for the weekend they had a British helpx couple for housesitting. These two let us into the house and showed us everything. We didn’t talk too much with them, just because they went to their room after dinner. Anyway, we found out that they were staying with Harry and Kim in Dunedin before! Really funny how travel routes can cross each other. Both introduced us as well to the other two housemates, Muppet the poodle (mixed breed) and Molly the cat. The next day we visited Lake Rotorua and the Whakarewarewa (or just Redwood) Forest Park. This is the only place besides California, in which these famous Redwood trees can be found. Additionally, we visited water falls (Okere Falls) and natural fresh water springs (Hamurana Springs). In the evening we finally met our hosts, Kent and Carol. All of us agreed to a new HelpX deal which consisted of 2 hours work per day for just accommodation and providing our own food. Although a bit quiet, both were really kind and especially after the bad experience in Taupo, just INCREDIBLY relaxed. In fact, they have a couchsurfing background but felt a bit used during time. That’s why they decided to start HelpX and give HelpXers jobs in the house. They didn’t care about how long exactly we worked, they just wanted certain jobs to be done (in our case, carrying fire wood from one place to another, so really relaxed for 5 days…). The next day was completely rainy, why Tobi helped Kent building a new shelter for the fire wood and Kerstin helped preparing lunch and dinner. In the afternoon we just relaxed a bit and in the evening we got a delicious roast from Carol (at least we could chip in with some potatoes and a pumpkin ;-))
The following morning, we relocated a bit of the fire wood in order to walk once around the Blue Lake and enjoy the Green Lake afterwards. We are probably a bit spoiled but it didn’t blow us away… In the evening we prepared German dinner for Carol and Kent (Kässpatzen), they had the equipment we needed for preparing.
The next day, we drove to Waitomo Caves, for which we found a deal in the internet. The guide through the Footwhistle Cave (one of the Waitomo Caves) was ok for the price, but in total not really spectacular. We only could see a few glow worms as well as a few stalagmites and stalactites. But quite interesting was that we could try a typical Maori tea afterwards, the Kawakawa tea. The leaves of the bush are so to say a miraculous cure for Maoris. After that we drove to The Shire. Yes you listened correctly, we wanted to visit the movie set of The Shire in which “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit” was made. Unfortunately, it was really cloudy so we decided to come back the next day. That was our last day in Rotorua and after they showed us their pictures of Machu Picchu in the evening (we definitely have to go there as well), we said goodbye to Carol and Kent the next morning. We quickly visited one of the Maori villages in Rotorua and drove to Hobbiton.
The visit of the movie set is quite expensive (75$, roughly 50€), but just breathtaking. You get a 2 hour guided tour through the movie set (with heaps of stories during filming, may they be true or just a complete fabrication), which is built with an unbelievable love for details. Of course it is really touristy and we were again lucky and had a Chinese travel group in the bus, but the first view is just breathtaking (one Chinese girl was almost about to collapse!!!). We were lucky and the sun shone almost the whole time. We would recommend to everyone wanting to do this tour, wait for the sun! The magic of this place consists of the colours of the lush green hills once the sun is shining. Otherwise it is just hills with coloured doors. Don’t understand us wrong, it is a beautiful place also without sun, but the real “WOW” experience just came up when the sun showed up behind the clouds.
After we enjoyed the „free“ beer in the “Green Dragon” (which is actually brewed especially for the movies! Oh, we almost forgot a fun fact: The party to Bilbos birthday is 5 minutes in the movie. However, the shooting took NINE evenings and all artists had to drink around 20 beers per night. In order to make them not too drunk they brewed a special beer with only 1% alcohol. The same beer, but full strength, is now sold in the pub), we drove to Tairua on the Coromandel peninsula to our next host Anthony, a completely crazy but lovely guy. Why? That’s another story…