Mt Maunganui & Rotorua

We drove about an hour south to a port town called Mount Maunganui. The port is huge and that area was quite industrial. We were surprised when we arrived at our campground that there is a nice beach town. It was unusual in that there were many 10 story condos lining the beach. Our campground was just a the end of the strip of condos.. a beautiful spot at the base of the 223m mountain called Mt. Maunganui.

We made an amateur mistake arriving to the town hungry at dinner time so we ended up eating crappy Italian food for dinner. The kids loved it.  There is a really nice walk at the base of the mountain. Ryan and Sonia walked around that path. Jack and I climbed some volcanic rock on the beach.

The next morning I woke up early to take the steeper route to the top of the mountain.

Sheep!

Lots of murals in NZ

When the kids got up, we visited some hot water salt pools nearby. The warm salt water comes from the volcanic rock. It was an outdoor pool that had some cool kid features. One thing I love about New Zealand is every where you go, there is a family rate. There are individual adult and child rates but the family rate is always a little bit less. It's a nice gesture.

Ryan surfed while we were at the pools. We headed out to Rotorua, our first inland town for a while. When we arrived we were immediately surprised at the size of Rotorua. We thought it was a small town. It isn't compared to the places we have been. There's a large hospital, forestry companies, consulting companies and all the American fast food I would never want. We dropped off the van at the campsite and walked into the town as it was only supposed to be 10 minutes away.

So again, we were now hungry. It was very hot. Jack was really struggling because we did not have a firm plan. Sonia developed hay fever and sneezed at least once every 5 minutes. It was Monday so we couldn't find anything to eat because everything was closed and then finally settled at some crappy place. To add to our unhappiness, someone decided it was important to drill into metal while we were eating. 

After the food, things got a little better. We created a plan. We visited a park but only briefly because of the heat. We went to a bookstore. I'd bought Jack a kindle before we left because he loves to read and I didn't want to haul a bunch of books around. Sadly, the kindle has never worked well so he has been without anything to read. The bookstore was great. Then we went to a pharmacy for Sonia. We returned to the campground to get the van so we could go to Skyline Rotorua - a gondola that takes you up a mountain so you can see the whole town AND a place that has a luge course so you can ride a luge with a break and steering wheel down a hill and take a lift back. That lifted everyone's spirits.

We visited a grocery store so we could eat dinner at the campsite. Our campsite had a playground, swimming pool and mineral bath. Rotorura is filled with mineral baths because of the rock underneath it. 

thermal pools at a park near the campsite

 Today, we visited Te Puia, a thermal reserve with more than 500 springs. It is also a sacred place for the Maori so there is a Maori cultural center and performances. They also have a Maori weaving and Maori carving school on site.

We wandered around checking out all the bubbling mud springs and huge geysers.  

a field of boiling mud

geyser that goes off twice an hour

I made Sonia hike up to this spot by telling her that we've flown 10,000 miles to get here so she could walk a little farther. She is giving you an ironic-I-am-impressed face.

We ate lunch at Te Puia with tourists from all over the world. It's really incredible how many different people there are here -- Chinese, Korean, South Asian, German, French, and those were the people I could identify. 

We then visited a New Zealand Redwood forest. They built a suspended walkway combining 21 wooden bridges between 116 year old Redwood trees. In the late 1800's, 170 different tree species were planted. I suspect people noticed how quickly the trees were disappearing. Turns out the California redwood grows really well here. The latitude of San Francisco and New Zealand are similar. Their climates are both temperate. The NZ version of the tree has softer wood but otherwise looked exactly the same to me. It occurred to me that my kids saw the NZ redwood forest before the California redwood forest. We agreed we'd try to visit the one closer to our home soon.