Rotorua is built right on top of active volcanoes, which is not the brightest place to build a town, but it's great for the tourist industry. The rule for touring Rotorua is simple: do not stray from the path. Off the paths, you might put your foot in a patch of boiling something and get your limbs burnt off. If you stick to the paths, you have what Brunnen-G called an "80% chance" of not being scalded by boiling acid or mud. Mud, as Puck warned us, boils at a hotter temperature than water does, and it sticks to you when it gets on you. Because the area is active, pieces of previously solid ground could potentially split open and become new pools of hot acidic earthly discharge.

So when her plan to kill us in the glow worm caves failed, Brunnen-G took us to Rotorua. Rotorua perpetually smells like sulphur, but we got used to it pretty quickly and thereafter only smelled it when there was a particularly high concentration of it. Sometimes you could see the steam blowing at you, although this was rare in the central part of town.

We had a jacuzzi in our hotel room, because it's not economically viable for a Rotorua hotel not to have them. Hot water is why people come to Rotorua. There are even thermal pools at the bus stops, where you can sit down on a bench, strip off your shoes and socks, and warm your feet. Brunnen-G called this "decadent yet civilized."

The Hotel Room

I described the palatial accommodations of our hotel room in the previous post, but there were a few things I didn't notice (as about all I did in the room the night before was collapse on the bed) until the next day. Next to each power outlet in the wall is a switch to turn it on or off. Brunnen-G had these in her home as well, but I didn't notice it before. Why does every power outlet need a switch? Because you just do, Brunnen-G said. Yes, New Zealand appliances do come with their own power switches, but standard practice is to have a switch mounted right on the wall, too. I've never seen that done anywhere else in the world.

The shower was a very slightly recessed hollow in the floor with a shower curtain around it. There was no rim to keep water from splashing everywhere. The lack of a rim around the shower floor probably made it much easier to clean, but it was strange taking a shower in a corner of the bathroom floor.

Breakfast

We had what was advertised as an "English Breakfast" at a Mexican Cantina. Which was, well, odd.

Some of us ordered eggs. They didn't ask how we wanted the eggs cooked. Apparently when you order eggs in New Zealand, the eggs are done, well, as they do them.

Waimangu Volcanic Valley

The Waimangu Volcanic Valley is a nature park preserve sort of thing. You pay some money and get to walk down into the valley, and if you wish, you can get bussed back out. We very much liked knowing that we would not have to walk a step up for every step we walked down. We started out at top, above the valley, so we started off with an excellent view. The valley was entirely coated with trees, and at the bottom there were patches of steam rising from the not yet visible ground. As we got closer, the steam became thicker and more visible, and eventually we got to the acid lakes that were spouting the fumes. I can't even describe what the acid lakes looked like: the acid looked like water, but the lake looked nothing like a lake of water. Besides the heterogenously thick sulphurus steam it was giving off, the acid was very clear, and the bottom was multicolored from corrosion by the acid. There were rust colors and streaks of blue and green, and the texture of the mud and rock underneath was unusual as well. Yes, it was very important to stick to the trail. Sometimes we passed banks of warm mud, and sometimes there were rivulets of acid right next to the trails. Most of that wasn't too hot to touch, but the lake was, in spots, visibly and audibly boiling.

At various stops there were little plaques that gave information on some particular sight and described how the land was all formed by volcanic eruptions. One such attraction was what was called "buried soil." We tried to find the buried soil, but it was all underground.

What the "buried soil" actually was was a bank of earth next to the trail that made it possible to see the layers of soil that had accumulated over time. One particularly dark, rusty layer was what a volcanic eruption had spewed out decades ago.

Later on, we encountered hot acidic rivers that connected more acid pools together. There were wooden walkways going over them, and that's obviously when the sulphur smell was thickest. It fogged up my glasses more than once.

Around here, we spotted the most embarrassing sign. It said, "Do Not Enter This Aera." There were two or three of these signs, actually, scattered around parts of the acid streams that didn't have wooden railings stopping you from leaping in. Never mind that the signs were unnecessary for anyone with a survival instinct -- we were too enamored of the typo that made its way into professionally manufactured signs. We took a picture, because we figured we could show it to Ellmyruh and drive her a little more insane.

Past the acid pools another 10 or 15 minutes was a lake of actual water, but we were exhausted from walking by then, so we stopped at one of the bus stops and got a ride down. Leen, who had been birdwatching avidly the whole time, added more birds to her list. The lake was littered with black swans, shags (we call them cormorants), and ducks. Among them were New Zealand Dabchicks, which we wouldn't see at any other time on the trip.

Cafe

We ate lunch at a cafe that served humongous burgers. Lots of squashing and beet removal had to be performed before they would fit in our mouths.

Mount Ngongotaha

Mount Ngongotaha is a big mountain with lots of sheep and rides on it. We took a gondola up to the top, and there were all sorts of different ways you could get down. We only did the luge and the sidewinder, but you could also hang on a thing and slide down a wire, or you could, uh, do some other thing, which I forgot.

The Luge

Sit in a flat but body-molded thing with handles. Turn the handles to steer. Pull back to brake. Do not brake by pushing the handles forward. Pushing the handles forward puts the thing in "park," which means that it stops dead, no matter how fast it was going previously. There was a sign at the outset about braking. There was the "RIGHT" way to brake, by pulling back: it showed a person sitting and braking nicely. And there was the "WRONG" way to brake, by pushing forward: it showed a person FLYING out of the car, upside down.

There were two tracks, both banked asphalt road that wound down the mountain. The Scenic track was more leisurely and provided you with an opportunity to see the views of the town and Rotorua lake as well as an opportunity to learn to control the cart. The Advanced track had twisty corners and steep downhill parts and jumps, and you hold on, "SCREAMING THE WHOLE WAY," as Brunnen-G eagerly put it, and Dave and I figured she was pretty cool.

Dave fell off twice, once when he couldn't steer and soared up a grass enbankment. Puck fell once, and I slammed into the side twice in the same spot but somehow stayed on. The last run down, I beat Puck to the bottom, which I considered a pretty admirable accomplishment.

At the Mexican Cantina, Leen spotted and swiped coupons for a free trip down the sidewinder when you bought tickets for the luge. We had bought tickets for five trips, so we took five down the luge and one down the sidewinder.

The Sidewinder

The Sidewinder was self-described as a "turbulent gravity thrill ride." It is like the Alpine Slide we go to at the Attitash ski resort in New Hampshire, except not exciting. You get in a cart thing and get sent down a metal half pipe (made of metal rather than the concrete of the Alpine Slide) and careen down the mountain. The trouble was, it wasn't very long or very steep, so instead of a turbulent gravity thrill ride, it was more of a tepid gravity slow ride. But whatever. It was free. Dave fell off the sidewinder twice.

After each run, a chairlift brought us back to the top. The chairlifts were cleverly constructed. Just before the chairlift swung up to carry two more people to the top, claws beneath it would grab luge carts and carry those back up to the top at the same time.

Of course, there were sheep grazing in every otherwise unused part of the mountain. After the last run, we took the gondola back down to town and passed a symbiotic sheep/blackbird pair. The blackbird was perched atop the sheep's back and picking bugs out of its wool.

Phone Books

In New Zealand, phone books have the yellow pages first, and the white pages second. Except in Auckland, which has two separate volumes of yellow pages and a single thick volume for the white pages.

Ice Cream

The first of many excursions to get ice cream was at a neat little ice cream parlour (not "parlor" over there, of course) by a river (of water!). I got Jaffa ice cream, which you can't get here -- it's basically a chocolate/orange ripple kind of thing -- and we ate it on the river banks. There were tons of black swans, so Leen got good close-up looks at some.

Driving Through Town

Driving back through Rotorua, we passed a restaurant that appeared to be named, "Food," which we all agreed was a great name for a restaurant.

Now is a good time to talk about fast food in New Zealand, actually. They do have McDonald's and Burger King and Wendy's and KFC and perhaps a couple other American food chains, but they usually only appear in the bigger towns and not on every street corner, like here. Instead, every other building in the commercial district is a private Mom & Pop take out place. Except it's not "take out." You don't get "take out" in New Zealand, and you don't get food "to go." You get "take away." Sometimes "takeaway" is one word, and sometimes it's plural. Go down the commercial district of any reasonably sized New Zealand town, and the most frequent and prominent word you see is "Takeaways." The word "takeaways" appears larger than any other word, including the actual name of the shop. I don't know why we don't do something like that here. We very quickly honed in on the word "takeaways" and, with exceptions, pretty much only ate out at places where that word caught our eyes. The next most prominent words would be "Fish -n- Chips" and "Burgers" and possibly other menu items. And if you hunted around long enough, you might find the name of the shop.

But "Food," the second-most common word you'd see in front of takeaway shops, was evidently the actual NAME of that one place in Rotorua, and that fact was the butt of many jokes.

Like all the other takeaway places, Food had no seating area -- in fact, it was more luxurious than some because it had a bench to sit on while your food was cooking. It was just a counter and a kitchen, much like our Domino's Pizza places.

But we didn't eat there that day. Instead, we went to a Chinese place, where we discovered the appetizers -- beef teriyaki, crab rangoon, and so forth -- that Darleen and I like are unheard of in New Zealand. We did, however, manage to find some good dishes on the menu.

Grocery Shopping

Do you have any idea how weird it is to walk into a grocery store and not recognize most of the brands? Leen and I got into placing a brand spotting game. "Hey, they have Gillette razors!" "Hey, they have Pringles!" Most of the stuff was completely foreign to us.

The cereal aisle had a mix of familiar and unfamiliar products. I recognized "Cocoa Pops" (essentially chocolate Rice Krispies) from England, but we don't have those here. The funniest thing was seeing cereals we have in America under a different name. "Frosted Flakes" are "Frosties" over there. More comically, "Rice Krispies" are "Rice Bubbles."

Mountain Dew

No wonder Brunnen-G doesn't like Mountain Dew. The Mountain Dew in New Zealand is nothing like the Mountain Dew we have here. It's too lemony, not sweet enough, and has that New Zealand carbonation in it.

Yes, carbonation is different over there. The Pepsi and Coke seemed to be the same, the Sprite was fine at McDonald's but strange everywhere else, and everything else was different. The fizz seemed to be denser and comprised of smaller bubbles, and it had a texture that affected the taste. It went fine with the L&P, but it interfered with a lot of the other drinks.

Happy Games

We kept forgetting to show Brunnen-G all about Happy Games, but we kept forgetting when we had a chance to do so. That night, at the hotel room, we played Happy Games with Brunnen-G. Rule six me all you want; I'll never tell. It must be demonstrated in person, or it's no fun at all. Brunnen-G was reduced to hysterics, and Puck looked on in the most befuddled state of mind imaginable.

"I can't work out why you like these people," he said. "So far the only redeeming quality is that Dave keeps falling off of things." As if on clue, Dave lost his balance when walking into the bathroom and had to raise his arms to regain his balance. He nearly fell off the floor.

Birds

9 new, 23 total: Black Swan, Gray Warbler (*), Tomtit (*), Australasian Harrier, Pukeko, Fan Tail, Silvereye, Tui (*), New Zealand Dabchick (*), Myna, Australian Magpie, Goldfinch (*), Chaffinch (*), Bellbird (*), Blackbird, Welcome Swallow, New Zealand Scaup, Mallard, Paradise Shelduck (*), Feral Goose, Pied Shag, Black Shag, Rifleman (*).