Monday 16 February 2026 – Having checked in yesterday and indulged in a cup of Twining’s Finest Earl Grey, we found ourselves with a little time on our hands. So we went for a walk. Obviously.
We had a bit of a side trip as part of my tiresome tireless search for an electric toothbrush, because the cheapo Colgate battery-driven number I’d bought in Auckland turned out to be pretty rubbish. Our walk to Woolworth’s took us past quite a fine mural.
Shame about the graffiti on it, though. However I know that you will share my (and Jane’s) delight that my search for a toothbrush proved moderately successful!
Our hotel is pretty much beside the lake, so it was a short walk to take an overview. Its geothermal pedigree is on clear display (and, of course, you can smell it, too – there’s a distinct “rotten eggs” niff of Hydrogen Sulphide in the air.
Jane had discovered that there is a walkway beside the lake out to a place called Sulphur Point, so we took it
whilst being sure to be careful because of the not-inconsiderable danger of death that seems to lurk round every corner.
As we walked along, we noted a vast flock of gulls by the lakeside.
I had assumed that the waters of the lake would be too toxic to support aquatic life, but apparently there are fish in the lake for the gulls to eat alongside insect and plants.
The walkway led past some black swans
who were doing the duck dive thing, which I’ve not seen before. At Sulphur Point there are a couple of pieces of art
“Waters of Rotorua”, by Rory McDougall. No, me neither
lots of gulls, some greylag geese and swamp hens.
There’s also been a strong effort to make the loo look pretty.
It was getting late by this stage,
and the light on the lake was lovely.
We hastened back to the hotel, walking through Government Garden and passing the museum, sadly largely covered in scaffolding and sheeting, but the exposed areas of which look very attractive.
Government Garden is a handsome place
and houses, among other things, a Māori Teahouse.
That was yesterday. Today was set to be Geothermal Day. Our itinerary took us to Orakei Korako, a geothermal park. When I visited New Zealand back in 1988, I based myself in Auckland and explored by simply driving as far as I could on day trips, one of which was to Rotorua, which is when I experienced its heady aroma for the first time. In those days I was neither culturally aware nor in possession of a guide book; all I wanted to see was some boiling mud. If memory serves, I did, although I can’t place exactly where I found it. But I must have seen some, otherwise the angst of having gone all that way and not found any to look at would have stayed with me for those intervening 38 years. So, I had high expectations of a boiling mud persuasion for today.
Orakei Korako is about an hour’s drive from Rotorua, through some typically quirky North Island scenery
and past significant evidence of vast amounts of logging.
It’s astonishing the amount of planting that has gone on of Monterey Pine trees, which are grown for the making of paper, since Eucalyptus doesn’t flourish here. There are impossibly steep slopes covered in these pine trees; I couldn’t imagine how they were even planted, let alone how the logging was done. But, clearly, it is done, and is a significant industry in the area.
Geothermal activity is a brutal thing, involving huge temperatures and pressures (and, I was hoping, boiling mud, of course). Orakei Korako has managed to put an entirely charming and low-key package together to showcase it. One parks lakeside, and is given a friendly but serious safety briefing (basically not to stray from the boardwalks, as this can be fatal) when collecting tickets, and is then transported across to the actual brutal bit on a cute little ferry.
The walk round the park takes 60 – 90 minutes, and is very well laid out, with maps and info boards to show you where you are and what you’re seeing. It was pleasantly quiet, with just a few people wandering about in the park. The boardwalks are easy to navigate,
though there is quite a bit of up-and-down as you pass and view the various sites.
It is a typically “blasted landscape”
with considerable evidence of sulphur, and steam rising in many places, often above boiling pools.
Some areas have names; this, for example, is called the “Artist’s Palette”.
It wasn’t particularly colourful today, but apparently under some circumstances it can be overrun by boiling water, which is an ideal growth platform for algae of a wide variety of colours.
I was feeling that there was a bit too much emphasis on pools of boiling water, when we came across this sign.
So, after a quick look at the cave
we hastened down so I could get my fill of boiling mud, mud, gurgling mud!
If you want to see the mud in action, I included it in this overview video of the place wot I produced,
which also gives a better idea of the scale of the place than any of the photos we took. It’s very nicely laid out and pleasantly uncrowded; we enjoyed our visit immensely.
We had to get back to the hotel in time to be collected and taken to our evening’s activity, a Māori “cultural experience”, a description apt to send a shudder up the spine. Ours was to be hosted at Te Puia, which John at Kiwi Dundee had described as “legit”, so I wasn’t absolutely dreading it.
A bus came to pick us up at around 5.15 for the short journey to the place.
We filed in through the arch and joined a whole heap of people who were there for the evening’s entertainment to witness a Māori welcome ceremony. In real life, of course, it has the possibility of going sadly wrong unless you know what you’re doing, but we had a host marshalling us around; he picked a sucker volunteer from the crowd to be the “visiting chief” and made sure that he didn’t get stuck by an angry challenger.
His job was to approach the pavilion which houses the “natives”.
Some final display then leads to the visitors being accepted and led into the pavilion. I have video, but you get the idea.
Inside, we are treated, as you might expect, to an exposition of native culture – a welcome speech from the “chief”, singing, dancing, explanation of the cultural and practical significance of dance accessories and weapons, and, of course, the haka, which is probably the single most famous Māori cultural export of New Zealand. If you’re a rugby fan. Again, I have video, so, erm, here is some of it.
It was by and large a jolly pleasing noise, but one thing struck me as unexpected. Not that I wish to accuse anyone of cultural appropriation, but there were a lot of familiar western harmonies in the songs they sang….
Following this was a part of the evening which I least expected and most enjoyed – a visit to the centre’s resident geyser*, Pōhutu. It was preceded by a session around a firepit where Māori cuisine was discussed as a prelude to the “Māori feast” we would have later, and then we all trooped down into the Te Whakarewarewa geothermal area in the centre to hope that Pōhutu would do its stuff before we had to troop back and eat.
It took a while – some twenty minutes of gradual buildup – but it was pretty spectacular when it finally came to the party.
The meal was set out as a buffet, and quite a massive one at that. Jane and I had been allocated Table 12, and were both pretty glad to find that it was a table for two. We partook reasonably lightly of the buffet, unlike the couple next to us, who came from (I think) Finland and could reasonably be described as comfortably upholstered. She had a dessert between two visits to the main course buffet stations, and he had just started on his third main course plateful – the third being after a dessert – as we left. A short bus ride took us back to the hotel, and that was it for the day, and a very enjoyable one it was, too, loaded as it was with many things geothermal of which we don’t see much in the UK.
I said that the Haka was New Zealand’s most famous cultural export, but there is, of course, an even more iconic, erm, icon of the country. This is what we shall learn about tomorrow. See you then?
* Pronounced “guyzer”,by the way. A “geezer” is who was taking photos of it.
