After customising the rather nifty little sports car that we were borrowing for the journey, we set off out of Auckland for the long and scenic drive down to Wellington for the quarters, taking in some of the North Islands sights on the way. After a breath-taking drive through the scenery of the North Island coast, we arrived in Rotorua around lunchtime and checked into our motel, which boasted an extremely warm swimming pool and also mineral pools. Rotorua is reknowned for the healing properties of its thermal bathing, so as I had a bad cold Tom was all aches and pains we were excited to try the local bathing.
Our first move was to take a short walk around the lake, which was like nothing either of us had seen before - like being on the moon. Oh, and the whole town smells of rotten eggs, thanks to the sulphur bubbling up from the pit of hell itself (or the earth's core, depending on your world view). We saw the steaming Rachel Pool (water at 212 degrees Fahrenheit) and checked out the local spa opportunities.
From there we took a walk through the compact centre of the town (most places we have seen here are laid out in a grid system, and the locals seem to prefer mall-type shopping) and stopped at The Pig and Whistle for fish and chips and a small beer.
We had heard that the Polynesian spa was less busy in the afternoon so we ambled along, having first removed all our jewellery (the minerals turn silver black, apparently). The private pools with lake view were deemed to be a 'little cold', so we opted for the private pools without lake view. Polynesian Spa
Relaxing in the pool was idyllic, but I'm afraid a combination of a viscious cold virus and being norther European defeated us both and we left feeling a little peaky. A quiet evening in our motel finished off the day.
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