with only two weeks to spend in new zealand, we wanted to make the most of our time. the first thing we noticed when we arrived was how many more people of color there were than we encountered in australia....many more asian people, many maoris (native new zealanders) and even a few black people! we spent only a couple days in auckland...the country's largest city. (it took us a day to walk the city, including a three hour stop at the auckland museum!) the museum was actually quite extensive! three hours only got us through the first floor, which has some really nice exhibits about maori history and culture and other people of the south pacific...
we rented a car and headed to rotorua...an area that is a geothermal region on the north island. it is full of volcanic activity with boiling lakes and mud pools and hot springs and geysers. the landscape is wild!! reminds you that the earth can be very grumpy sometimes! we spent a day at waiotapu, hiking around lakes and collapsed craters. the water in the champagne pool comes from so far underground that it is 230 deg C at it's source!! at the surface it's something like 78 deg C! the superheated water is so hot it absorbs all kinds of minerals from the rock it moves through & then deposits them on the bottom of lakes. the downside...sulphur smell is very stinky! on the way back to auckland, we stopped at hot water beach along the east coast. when you go at low tide, you can rent a shovel and dig in the sand...just a few inches down you will find boiling hot water!! people dig their own hot tubs and sit in the sand! the surges were a bit too high for us to dig a proper hot tub that day, but all we had to do was dig our toes down a few inches to get to the hot water...hot enough to burn your feet!!
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