Day 24: Rotorua

Today was a cold, rainy day so we spent a lot of it indoors, reading and relaxing. We walked down to the lake and wandered through Kuirau Park, where some of the thermal vents that Rotorua is famous for are located. The whole area is a hotbed (literally) of thermal activity, with several volcanoes and a large number of hot springs, geysers, and steam vents. The entire town smells of sulfur, but luckily you become accustomed to the smell pretty quickly. Update by Mary: No, you don’t.

Rotorua is an interesting combination of a tourist town and a local town, with one half filled with tourist information and booking shops, and the other half filled with appliance stores, feed shops, and other things that only the locals (and those from all of the surrounding, smaller towns) would need. It’s a heavily Maori town, since the area has always been important to them, featuring heavily in their mythology. I think we would’ve liked it more if the weather had been better, but it’s not terribly attractive, nor is there a whole bunch to do.