So after the heavy rain of last night it looked really nice out this morning the sun was out but it was actually quite cold and very windy. We decided to head off to Hells Gate which is one of the Geothermal Parks just outside Rotorua. It is large area of mostly hot pools of various temperatures, the hottest of which is 122c at the surface and 144c 1 metre down. The main reason we went there is to see Kakahi falls which is the largest hot waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere. It has a temperature of around 40c but I have to say they were slightly disappointing as they are not very steep and actually the water flow isn’t that great, but when we thought about it we realised that they probably wouldn’t be as they are spring water, all the same we have now seen them and the mud pools were interesting. Each pool has a story from the waterfall where the Maori warriors bathed to remove the blood of battle to hot water pools that could cook a whole adult pig in 2 hours.
After that we went to the buried village which is an archeological area where once the town of Te Wairoa was buried in 1886 by a volcanic eruption and 120 people died, the museum has information about some of the people that were in the town during the eruption, Some of it was really interesting, the hotel only had one guest on the night and unfortunately he didn’t survive although the volcano and mud slide didn’t get him, during the earthquake they all went into the smoking room to wait it out, but as the aftershocks got worse they decided to leave the building and the balcony collapsed on him! We walked all the way round the site then down to Wairere Falls which after the other falls were really spectacular. The pathway goes all the way down the side and across the bottom so you get a fantastic view of the falls although it was a little wet, after we climbed up the other side we went back to the apartment for lunch. This afternoon we walked down to Rotorua and along the lake front, I hadn’t realised that the lake also had geothermal activity, the majority of the lake is really clear but one area is really milky white. After that we walked back as we were being picked up at 5.45 for a Maori show. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but it was really good. It started with a description of the different types of canoe they had then the warriors arrived in their war canoe, then we all went into the meeting house for a show which was actually really good and informative. It covered the music, education games and finally the Haka for this tribe, finally it was back into the main room for dinner which had been cooked under ground this afternoon.
