Hot and Steamy- completed version!

It has been a busy week. Hence the lack of updating. Or maybe I was just being too lazy. Probably a bit of both. I went to Wellington last weekend with a couple of girls from the bus. On Monday night we discovered the best thing to do in Wellington- visit my friend, Kamaea from Mokpo, well not from Mokpo but that is where I know her from. We could only meet for a couple of hours as I had rather sprung my visit on her and she had plans for that evening. So we met her and her boyfriend, Scott, in an Irish bar for dinner and a beer. After they had gone- to the theatre no less- we didn't really get around to leaving the bar until after one. And there were some strange photos of Jen on a swing on both of our cameras the next day. Hum.

I was up the next day and off to Napier. Napier was levelled by an earthquake in the 30s and was subsequently rebuilt in the style of the day- it is an art deco fetishist's ultimate dream. It is pretty enough but I was knocked out by the beer the night before so managed little more than eating, reading and sleeping.

Off to Lake Taupo, New Zealand's biggest lake. Apparently it is the size of Singapore. It was a pretty overcast day and I set off on walk. Three hours later I had made it to the end of the walk and the beginning of walking around what I had come to see. Taupo is a mass of geo-thermal sites which means that there is steam pouring out of the ground all over the shop and hot hot streams racing through the countryside. The most active area is called Craters of the Moon- lots of steam and bubbling mud. It was super cool but enough walking for me after over four hours solid without lunch. I caught a taxi back to town with a couple of fellow exhausted hikers I met by the kiosk there.

Arriving back at the hostel I found that Jen had got there. We might have gone out for another beer or two that night. Then yesterday I got onto my bus which took us to THE CRATERS OF THE BLOODY MOON again, dammit! Actually it was cool because it was a sunny day. The day before I had seen a postcard of some beautiful mountains by a lake and when I looked at the back of it I realised that it was Taupo but the clouds had obscured the scenery. So I was glad to catch a glimpse before heading off to the next stop- which was Rotorua.

Rotorua was basically not around just over a hundred years ago. But it is the site of the birth of New Zealand's tourism. How come? Well, the original town here was popular with bathers who came to take the thermal baths and admire the pink and white calcium terraces. Then one night (in 1896?) the local volcano erupted and when the air cleared the next day nearly 150 people were dead and there was no sign of the three miles of terraces. Nearby people helped the survivors and gave them a piece of land which became Rotorua. These days people still come here for the thermal waters, geysers, bubbling mud pools and to experience a Maori Cultural show and hangi- food!

Me and Jen managed nearly all of those. The Magic Bus driver took me to the mud pools on the way into town and that night me and Jen went to the Mitai performance. It was excellent! We were shown where the food was cooking in the ground- hangi- then greeted by the chief of the tribe. After that we were shown traditional dances, songs, weapons, instruments and the Moko (tattoo) was explained to us. Then we ate- and did we ever eat!! Lamb, chicken, stuffing, potato, sweet potato, gravy, salads, chocolate cake, trifle, fruit salad, we ate and ate antil we were nearly at bursting point. At which point it was time for a guided walk through the forest.

We were taken the mineral pool, the clearest water you ever did see, with eels and trout swimming around in it. As the lights were turned off we were able to see gloworms glistening in the trees and bushes. All too soon it was over and we took the bus home with the sound of the songs in our ears, the experience in our hearts and the food most definitely filling our bellies. Fantastic!

But the fun wasn't over. We were up early the next day and off to Waitomo- home of black water rafting, caving, abseiling into caves, tubing through the caves, generally mucking around in caves and gloworms. Me and Jen elected to take a tour called Spellbound and waved the others off on their adrenaline seeking day. Our guide, Norm, picked us up from the teeming metropolis that is Waitomo (population: 41) and off into the countryside. He showed us the fault line on the surface that runs through the caves below ground.

We went to two caves, the first (shortly to be made even more famous in a David Attenburgh documentary to be screened in the UK in October, set the video, little sister!) involved a short walk and the wearing of hats with lights on the front, a throw back to my Welsh roots, until we reached the underground river. There we got into a boat and the rest of the tour was taken in silence and with no artificial lights. As our eyes adjusted to the darkness more and more little green lights appeared on the walls and the ceiling. These were the gloworms we had come to see. They were awesome, like the clearest night sky that you could hope to see, casting a dull green light throughout the cave.

Now, what are gloworms, I hear you cry! They are, in fact, not worms at all bu the maggot stage of a fly that looks a lot like a giant mossie. The eggs hatch and the 'worm' makes itself a little nest of goo and mucus and then it starts fishing for food. Sending down up to 70 lines, baited with sticky stuff, the worm glows which attracts other insects which get stuck in the lines. The worm can then eat them. How does it glow? Well, it is the waste product of the gloworm that makes the lights- yes, we had travelled two hours to look at glow in the dark maggot poo! But it was worth it. The gloworm lives this way for around 9 months, or however long it takes to reach a certain size before changing into a fly, shagging frantically for a couple of days, laying some eggs and then dying. Awesome!

The next cave was a mass of stalagtites and stalagmites. Very beautiful, very peaceful and Norm was a very informative guide. The tour lasted about three hours and Waitomo is a two hour bus ride from Rotorua.

We knew the moment we were back in Rotorura as the smell is something else- rotten eggs, that sulphuric nastiness, that seeps through the entire town to a greater or lesser extent all day. Heedless to the smell we just went straight to the Polynesian Spa where we spent some time lounging around in the hot thermal pools, admiring the view of the city lights from our outside baths, shrieking in the cold shower, listening to the night bird songs and watching the Koreans loving the whole thing and spitting in the flowerbeds- them not us!

The Koreans were funny because they are used to bath houses back home and so not in the slightest bit shy in the changing rooms. One old lady actually walked out to the pool with her swimsuit pulled down to her waist, boobs on show, to the amusement of the male contingent in the pool. They shouted at her and her answer seemed to be something along the lines of 'it is nothing they haven't seen before'!

Back in the hostel we realised that the smell of Rotorua was now deeply embedded in our swimsuits and there was no getting away from it. Ah well.

Today I said goodbye to Jen and walked into town through the park, which looks like any normal park except for the spouts of steam rising from craters in the ground every few feet. I am off today too and should make it to Auckland tomorrow. Then I have just a few days left before I get on a plane to Fiji on Wednesday.

I was going to put some photos on here but I can't find a place to burn a CD for me- so you will have to wait a little while longer!