d headed out for a girls' weekend at the beach. But first we're stopping for the night at Rotorua, a place that is considered one of the "1,001 Places To See Before You Die," according to the page-a-day-calendar page sent to me by one of my co-workers recently.It is also one of the stinkiest places on earth, owing to the sulfur-rich lake in its midst. You know how they tell you that if you smell rotten eggs it means there's a gas leak, because they add the rotten-egg smell to the gas? Well, they must add pleasant-fresh-air-smell to the gas lines around here.
But first, we made a couple of stops. Our first stop was a brief lunch break at Lake Taupo, where we experienced one of my favorite bits of Kiwiana: the tomato-shaped plastic squeeze bottle of ketchup ("tomato sauce") on the table at the restaurant. Next up we stopped at Huka Falls, a waterway used to power a hydroelectric plant (and YES, the water really is this color. the melted-glacier water mixes with the fine gray dust of ground-up rocks, called "glacial flour," and because there is no topsoil mixed in, the resulting color is this awesome aqua.). This was a free -- no cost -- attraction. I think if it were in the U.S. they'd charge admission.
Next up was Craters of the Moon, one of the many semi-volcanic attractions. This only cost $5 to get into a
nd was worth every penny. Apparently because this area of New Zealand is unusually close to the heated innards of the earth, signs of the toasty interior occasionally make their presence known, in the form of steamy bursts of superhot air. Sometimes the earth collapses inward, too ("craters"). So they have helpfully created a raised wooden walkway through the park where it is safe to tread -- but we were warned to make sure we keep to the p
ath and not veer off because the superheated areas can singe away the plant life on the surface and make it look just like a manmade path. Yikes. There are also curious-looking plants that apparently thrive in these kind of conditions. Many of them looked like cacti, or kind of even like seaweed.This was also the first (well, the second if you count our day spent exploring Napier on foot) of what was to be many more days of intense walking and/or hiking ("tramping," as the Kiwis say) on this trip. Intense by my standards, but not as intense as the three-or-more day NZ hikes that are so popular youhave to reserve a spot a year or more in advance. That's for my next trip!
After Craters of the Moon we stopped at this place "only the Kiwis know," Kerosene
Creek, which, like Huka Falls, is FREE to visit. It's a hot spring. You walk down this trail and find yourself a nice spot among the trees and jumnp in. Just like a hot tub only there are minerals in the water so you end up with a find kind of rusty dust on your skin afterwards.And so we were off to Rotorua. Once there (your nose gets used to the smell after a while and you don't really notice it anymore), we had dinner at this fun English-pub type place in an old police station.
Which brings me to another of the fabulous Kiwi ideas I think we ought to implement in the U.S.: Restaurants. A lot of places work like this: you order your food at a counter or at the bar, pay for it, then they give you a number on a stick (those things they put on tables at banquet halls to tell you what table you're at) and note your number. Then, when your food is ready, they bring it to you. There is no tipping. (I mentioned to a friendly bartender later on the trip how this no-tipping thing makes me vaguely uncomfortable, as an American who totes a tipping-cheat-sheet card in her wallet should a tipping need arise. He replied that people leaving tips made him kind of uncomfortable. So there.) Anyway, every restaurant keeps a handy supply of clean glasses and pitchers (or a faucet) of ice-cold water at the ready for anyone who wants it. I think this is linked to tipping in the U.S. because here, your waitperson's percentage of tip is often directly connected to their attentiveness to your water glass. So by taking away the tipping they also leave you in charge of your own water supply -- but therefore you always have enough water. I mean, how many times have you been totally thirsty but you have to waste a waitperson's time to get you a fresh beverage? Now, I'm an unusually thirsty person, but this has happened to me twice this week already. I'm just saying.
