Rotorua - Taupo - Napier

We made our way into Rotorua, which smells like rotten eggs, and then headed out to a volcanic valley for our first tour of thermal activity. The valley we went to was last active in 1886, and it was amazing to see how much vegetation had sprouted up since that time. It was beautifully lush with lakes and rivers, that were steaming and bubbling. One of the lake had the most gorgeous coloured water I had ever seen. It was a deep turquoise color and was calling us to jump in for a swim (however the high acid level and temperature (45 degrees) prevented us from doing so). We hiked up the more challenging trail and I was amazed at all the noises, frogs, crickets, and birds filled the air with all their sounds.

We continued on down to Taupo in search if a free campsite we had heard about. We found it, and it could not have been more perfect. It was situated right along the river and surounded by trees and srubs. We jumped in for a bit of a swim and were carried quite quickly down stream. I found myself screaming as I ripped through some rapids in about one foot of water, and felt lucky to still have my bathing suit on by the time I was through it! That night we had our first succesfully cooked diner of saussage sandwhiches, and began to feel much better about our camping abilities.

The next day (after a rather late start) we headed in to town bought some beer and body boards and headed out to the hot stream. It's an area along the river were a smaller river with extremely hot water runs down into it. We putz around there for quite awhile until the sun began dip down behind the trees. After stealing some wood from behind some dumpsters in town we headed back to the campsite. We ended up joining up with some Czech guys who were camping next to us and managed to keep a fire going for quite some time (which was much better than our fire from the night before which was made from scrap wood from around the site and lasted about 20 minutes).

Our next destination was Napier, a town known for its art deco collections. We rolled into the visitors center, hoping to find a campsite as great as our last one, but were disapointed to learn that no such place existed. So we headed for the beach to enjoy the sun, however we only stayed for about an hour because we felt ourselves burning (the ozone is said to be the thinest down here). So we haulled ourselves and our mattresses to a park and took a litlle siesta under a shady tree. We then drove around for a bit and got ready to go out on the side of the road in a residential area. After being asked if our car had broken down and if we needed help, we had to laugh at ourselves, and continued on our way, with an unknown destination, but ended up parking at the beach where we saw 7 or 8 campervans ligning the lot. It turned out to be a great desicion as we met a ton of people (Dutch, German, French, Canadian) and eventually headed out to the bar, where Ashley and I got a much needed fix for Dancing! I ended off the night taking a swim in some nearby pools and then enjoying a beautiful sin-rise!