New Zealand Day 4 Rotorua: Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal Wonderland, Zorb

Rotorua: Wai-O-Tapu Geothermal Wonderland, Zorb

Hotspring! When we arrived in Rotorua yesterday night we had to wind up the car windows... because the whole town stank of sulphur(egg-like smell). It's quite bearable for a few days, but I can't imagine growing up here. I mean, picture you bringing your girlfriend out on a romantic date, or confessing your love...all the most important and precious moments in your life will be tainted with the suphur stink lol. 

I would like to introduce you to.. Lady Knox Geyser, an attraction of Wai-O-Tapu!

It erupts every morning at 10:15am; obviously not naturally. A guide will come and give a short explanation, then throw some soap thing into the geyser which is supposed to break the tension of the water underground then *BOOM*

I didn't think it would be exciting since we know it was going to erupt, but it was! We were in high spirits after watching it. Great way to start our day!

our sexy model poses

the unflattering back side lol

L.O.V.Eヾ(￣∇￣=ﾉ

E.V.I.L stupid guy beside us who knew we were trying to take a picture but still wouldn't budge away

There are a few other very famous hotsprings in Rotorua like Hell's Gate and Waimangu but we decided to go with Wai-O-Tapu because it's the most colorful one ^^v

This particular pool is aptly named Artist's Palette. The colors are caused by minerals.

blue                                 alkali-chloride

cloudy yellow/green     acid sulphate

orange                            antimony/arsenic

grey                                carbon

green/yellow                 sulphur/arsenic  

A walk around Wai-O-Tapu doesn't take that long. I think our walk was less than 2 hours? 

lol no I did not fall.

But I thought I was a lot better at balancing than this! I couldn't stay still at all.

Note that my feet are in the air.

Joyce surfing the railing

I know it looks like a hot sunny day but it was actually very cold and I remember feeling chilly the whole time lol. The things I do for good pictures.

camera's super vivid mode.

Really happy I get to hang out with Joyce one last time (well... hopefully not the last time). Her house was a sanctuary where I could go when I was bored or hungry lol.  Going swimming with her every week was pretty addicting too. It felt weird to not meet her at least one a week when we stopped going at December because we got busy, 

After the hotspring, we did ZORB!!

This is the zorb place. So leng ヽ(*￣▽￣*)ﾉ

We used OGO Rotorua which was only a 5～10-minute drive from Rotorua city centre. There are basically two types of zorbing: one which they fill the ball with some water and you slip and slide inside while the ball rolls down the hill and the other one is you get harnessed so you go head over heels all the way down. I would have liked to try the harness ogo but the price was nearly twice as much.

After Wai-O-Tapu, we went back to Crank Backpackers to book the zorb thing because they had a lot of good offers. Normally bookings are not required because well.. it takes less than 30seconds for the ball to roll down so it's unlikely that you would have to wait long even if there were a lot of people? Anyway, with Crank Backpackers, Harness Ogo becomes NZ$60->NZ$50 and the H20GO straight track becomes NZ$45->NZ$35. Quite a lot, no?

But in the end we decided to ride a ball together which price was originally $35 per person. Max was three people so we spilt into two teams.

And it was the RIGHT choice!

Definitely a lot more fun screaming and sharing the experience with someone than going alone. We (well, me actually) contemplated whether it would be more worth the money if we go down alone since the price is the same.

My only complaint would be that the ball wasn't transparent enough. Would definitely add to the excitement if I could see the blue sky and the lush green surrounding zooming by.

Cat-like Joyce with meowmeow.

After zorbing we went to jalan2 at rotorua town again before heading back Auckland. As always feel that the day was wasted because we only did 2 activities for the whole day. Wanted to do the Agrodome  where we can see the sheep performance (ﾉ゜д゜)ﾉ.

But we were around 15 minutes short of time to make it to the last show of the day. First world problem where your friends are super rich that they don't mind going all the way to NZ just to relax in the hostel LOL. Would have spent more time in Wai-O-Tapu if I had known earlier.

Oh, well still tons better than their original plan to reach Auckland by 5pm to return the car. We would have had to leave around 1 pm if so. Thank god that after asking the car rental company, we found out it was ok as long as we return the  car before the next morning. We just had to toss the keys into a box near the garage. 

And so we begin our journey back to Nomad Fat Camel... not exactly looking forward.

     $$$$$$$  

Wai-O-Tapu   NZ$29.3

Zorb   NZ$35

Nomads Fat Camel   NZ$19 

                              

New Zealand Trip Day 3 - Tauranga, Butler's Swim with Dolphins

Butler's Swim with Dolphins

Even I myself feel so surreal when I look at this picture. Did my lucky eyes really got to feast on such a stunning view?

There are only 3 companies in Tauranga that operates the swim with dolphins: the seasafaris, butler's swim with dolphins, and another company whose name I forgot. The deal is that they are supposed to find you a pod of dolphins, and if there are no baby dolphins, you get to change into some wet gear and swim with them! Or actually more like you hang onto the boat with one hand and the dolphins will come to you.  We checked the tripadvisor reviews but couldn't make up our minds at all till the very end. Butler's is a small boat with less than 10 people while the other two are bigger boats which can fit 50 people. All had good and bad reviews. Like seasafari is bigger, therefore more proper so the way they do things has more standard BUT some said they were too commercialized and that if they couldn't find any dolphins, they just go back. Butler's smaller and more cincai but supposedly got more 'feel' and that if there weren't any dolphins, they try hard to make it up to you by letting you swim with seals or something. 

Anyway conclusion is that people who managed to see the dolphins would give super good reviews while those who weren't lucky enough would trash the company. And also those who expected to be able to swim with dolphins 100% but couldn't because there were baby dolphins would be devastated and angry as well, claiming that the company was cheating...that it was almost as if the captain already knew there would be baby dolphins and they won't get to swim.... or that  it was the baby-season but they weren't told beforehand.

Being the hippies we are, we chose to go with the smaller one: Butler's Swim with Dolphins. Turned out that our cruise was the Captain Butler's last time before he retires. It made us all feel special.

It also turned out to be an all-girls trip (except for the captain and his helper who you can see at the back of the pic) yay! From the left we have an American who was travelling alone, us four then a Thai and a Jap. The cute red-head lady who helped to take this photo was Butler's granddaughter!

ship ahoy～

Living in a beautiful place like Tauranga with your own boat seems pretty awesome. Maybe something to be considered if/after I get bored of the cities.

Here's our merry captain! He looks like a summer version of santa claus (^^)

Once you go down a flight of steeeep stairs, you come to this. 

With this to your left.
 

Here's where we can boil water and make our own coffee/tea. There's a box of assorted biscuits, too. nay kidding. Just plain biscuits. I merely wanted to use the word assorted. 

This is just beside the kitchen and where we sat down to enjoy the drinks Joyce made. I found out that it's pretty nice to have someone who enjoys cooking along on trips.

Where we put our belongings. 

Lots of bunks.

please observe my fair thighs

fat thighs when will be gone arghhh,.. look like drumstick

LOVE this shot I took of Joyce

I originally thought we would be going to the middle of the sea to see the dolphins but the coast was always in sight.

observe my cute butt

oh well... since you haven't seen any pictures of dolphins yet you can guess what happened :(

yes, no dolphins :(

By 1,2 pm when there was still nothing, we kind of have 'xin li zun bei' already. Supposedly the last time Butler went out (which was the friday before), they got to see lots of dolphins. We couldn't blame anyone so we blamed mother nature. We did half-expected Butler to find us some seals or at least let us into the water. We got nothing though. He explained that the water was too cold, which was very true.

It was autumn in New Zealand and we were cold as it was already so we didn't protest much about not being able to even snorkel. The deal also included another time if you don't get to see your dolphins and Butler was willing to try again tomorrow. But it would be betting another whole day andddd in the end, we decided not to. One thing that slightly irked me was that whenever I asked when is the best season for dolphins sightings, Butler would say there's no such thing and that all year round was ok. How can that be -.- I did found out later that summer(January, February) is a better choice. 

I still enjoyed my cruise out to the sea very much today. Not everyone did though. The jap and thai girls slept inside most of the time. The american girl was alone most of the time. But yours truly got to chat with the cute helper, Sam most of the time *teehee* (god I pray he will never come across this blog). It was really fascinating to hear Sam talk bout his travels and his dreams enthusiastically. He's studying about ship stuff(?) in uni and learning the ropes hands-on during weekends by helping out Butler. He aspires to see the Pacific Ocean....by walking along the whole coast after he graduates.

When he asked me information on Malaysia and Thailand, I told him 'Yes yes, you can take a bus from Malaysia to Thailand'

'No, no. I don't want to take a bus. I want to walk along the coast

'Walk??' I echoed hollowly.

Sam predicted that it would take him 2 years to accomplish the walk. 

I was told that I shouldn't be doing things I don't like in my life (→mechanical engineering ←)

I'm as 'dreamless' as he is 'dreamful ' if there's such a word.   

By the way, In the end I found out he was only around 17 years old. God. These ang mohs all really look so mature for their age. 

  

The jap girl was quite interesting to talk to, too. And you can tell she was very grateful to have some conversation in Japanese. She was on a 9-month English program which is compulsory in her high school. Must be some super rich high school ヽ(´c_,`)  And because there's not as many Asians in Tauranga as Auckland, the natives aren't used to them and would say 'fucking asians' when the girl talked to her jap friends in japanese. Poor thing.

cool boat we came across at the harbour

the harbour in the evening

It was pretty dark when we got back so I didn't bother to push my suggestion about going to the beach. We drove to Rotorua to stay for the night after chilling out a bit.

Here's a pretty picture of me to make up for the dolphins.

$$$$$

Butler's Swim with Dolphins NZ$135

Crank Backpackers Rotorua NZ$26