Christian Perez's Travel Journal

I'm standing on a volcano, Sun Aug 13, 2006

You ever had soo much to say it made you not want to say it, because the saying would be long and tiring? Me, too. I wrote only a few days ago, but we're moving really fast now. No time (or money) to hang about.

I was sad (*sniff*) that I didn't get to walk to the famous Tongariro crossing. It's a one-day walk that looks like your hiking across the face of Mars--steaming pools, no trees, wierd colored rock--that's covered in snow right now. So I opted to take a drive with Ben around Lake Taupo and check out the mountain from the highway. We went around Tongariro and hardly got a glimpse thanks to poor weather. We were circling around it when I stopped at a sign that said Maori village excavation site.

Turns out there was a very important village on that spot, one that gaurded a little island in the middle of Lake Rotoaira, south of Tongariro. There were some local Maoris cleaning up the site, and we talked with one about the history of the land, the Maori, all sorts of stuff. Maori perform haka, a threatening warrior dance used to frighten or challenge enemies, and the most famous one is the haka the All Blacks rugby team use at the start of a match. Anyone who watches rugby in this country knows the haka by heart. It started when a famous chief was hidden on that little island. When he emerged alive from hiding, he performed that haka.

Anyway, he told us there was a lake a few minutes away, fed entirely by underground spring water that supplied fresh water to this larger lake. We hiked up to Lake Rotopounamu (Greenstone Lake) and were tempted to swim in it to test his claims of its healing powers. But it was frigid out, clouds blocked the sun, and so we just skipped some stones on its clear, green surface.

We drove up to Rotorua that night, only an hour away. Its the tourist hot spot for the North Island--and also for geothermal activity. (Hahaha, do you like my witty joke?) Pick a direction from where you stand, walk 10 minutes, and you'll trip over a hot spring or steam vent of some kind. A local told us all you need to have a hot spring spa in your home is to drill a hole in the ground and put a pipe down it.

We hit up the Polynesian Spa that's right beside Lake Rotorua at about 8 pm. We soaked in sulphurous 42 C water for about 2 hours, watching a few puffy clouds drift along, shimmering outlines against the bright full moon... Yeah, way too romantic with another guy. I wish I had a girlfriend down here.

The next day we got up late, and I had my heart on seeing a Kiwi. Luckily, the centre that does all the Kiwi egg hatching and conservation for the whole North Island was just up the road. We went into the hatchery and they pulled out an egg for us. They have to periodically check to make sure the chicks are still alive inside the eggs...by whistling. When you whistle, it startles them, and the kick around in the egg and you can watch it wiggle on the table. So cute! The eggs are huge, too, like a dinosaur egg.

We went into the indoor twilight room where there were 3 kiwi sitting around. It was close to their bed time, so they mostly just sat there, but we got to watch one run across their enclosure when the staff putting them to bed. We stuck around and looked at exhibits and talked to our guide about NZ and random things, and the director asked if we wanted to come in and listen to some talk they were giving. After the presentation, we got in FREE to the other half of the park, where you can walk around at night.

And more Kiwi!! There is an outdoor Kiwi shelter, and since they are nocturnal, you have to wait till dark to see them. We went in and they were mostly asleep, but we came back and hour later and we saw them running around. The fence separating us was only knee high! The little bugger was running around its paddock, sniffing in the dirt, waddling its little butt everywhere. It run back and forth along the fence we were standing by, stopped right under me, looked up, and sniffed in my lowered face before runnning off again.

The other Kiwi was missing a leg and hopped around, using its stump kinda like a pirate wooden leg. It was easier to watch though, since it wasn't sprinting back and forth. We heard some noises coming from one of the others but never saw it. Apparently, the male is a bit crazy. It wakes up and spends the whole night attacking the plants in its enclosure. It jumps on the little trees, falls back in a bush, and then attacks the bush for breaking its fall. Sadly, no pictures of any because it was too dark and the camera was dead.

The next day we hit up Waiotapu, the Sacred Waters, which is a self-proclaimed Thermal Wonderland. It was pretty cool--or hot, Ben says--with steaming hot pools all different colors, and fumerole vents hissing steam and turning bright green. The coolest hotpool was the Champagne pool--transluscent green with bright orange walls--which flowed into the Artist's Pallete and turned different colors of green, orange, purple, and yellow. At the end we saw Devil's Bath hotpool, which was the color of the Predator's blood--wierd neon green/yellow highlighter, I can't remember. It blew my mind.

Well, that doesn't cover the last 2 days, but it'll have to do for now. I'm hungry. We got the camera charged, so maybe tonight we'll be able to upload the rest of our pics. Really awesome Milford Sound pics coming soon!