Honeymoon Day 4 - Hiking and Geysers
After a long and frankly tiring day of tours on day 3, we decided not to set any kind of alarm on day 4, then get up and explore some hiking in the area. Nothing too crazy, something that might take a few hours and then we could hang out for a bit and enjoy some geothermal sights in the afternoon.
Nearby Rotorua is the Whakarewarewa forest (try saying that three times fast... or once). This is a forest of many types of trees, including California redwoods, the oldest of which are a little over 100 years old. While the trees obviously aren't quite as large as their Californian counterparts, they are still quire impressive, and made for a lovely backdrop for a mid-morning hike. The forest is actually a commercial venture, though the redwoods in particular are protected from being harvested. According to their website though, it started with 170 different types of trees in the early 1900s.
One of our favorite things in NZ were the massive ferns. These are not palm trees in the picture, but actually super tall fern tree... things. They were beautiful, and provided good shade and green. They were also really neat to look up at from below - something you can't do with the low-growing ferns I'm used to in Seattle. It felt a bit like Jurassic Park being in amongst all the tall ferns. The most famous of ferns from NZ is the silver fern, which looks like any old fern from the top (it's a low fern), but the underside of the fronds is a grey-silver color in the light. Presumably, Maori people used to use them for navigation, leaving the silver side of a torn off frond facing up to mark their path through the woods. The silver fern is such an important symbol to New Zealand that they even thought about changing their flag to incorporate it. It is also the symbol seen on the NZ Rugby team's jerseys.
Our hike wound us through the redwoods, then these ferns, passed a clearing (like I said, commercial forest), and wound back into woods that could have been straight out of the Pacific Northwest. Some key differences were the lack of much moss on trees, and the addition of some neat geothermal sites, like the mud pool pictured below. The mud would bubble up releasing gasses, which was pretty neat. It's a pretty famous souvenir from the Rotorua area as its good for skin cleansing, but we opted out of that particular gift.
The weather for our hike was a little on the warm side for how we were dressed, but luckily most of it was in the shade, so we didn't mind too much. Overall, it was a really great way to get closer to some of the native (and non-native) plants in the area. We finished up at the redwoods gift shop and enjoyed some local ice cream/sorbet. I had a pear and feijoa sorbet bar that was super delicious, and Charlie had a vanilla and raspberry ice cream bar dipped in chocolate that I couldn't help but sample.
We got back to the hotel and had a light lunch of peanut butter and banana sandwiches, the aforementioned chicken flavored chips, and some Tim-Tam cookies, which were delicious. They are a chocolate cookie with chocolate mousse sandwiched in there, dipped in chocolate. They are popular in New Zealand and Australia I believe, and come in a huge number of flavors. I would liken them to Oreos here in the states.
After chilling at the hotel for a bit, we drove over to Te Puia geothermal park to check out their mud pools and geysers. It was a small-ish park, which was kind of good since we only got there an hour before it closed, but it had some pretty incredible sights. We saw much more extensive mud pools than in the woods, and although they are hard to photograph, we did our best.
There was one active geyser cluster at Te Puia, that was erupting almost constantly for the 15 minutes or so that we stood there to watch it. The main geyser just kept on kicking, and smaller ones near it would flare off to the sides every so often.
There were a ton of inactive geysers as well. They used to erupt regularly, but once people figured out they could bore holes to get geothermal energy and heat, they lost their pressure. This happened to a lot of geothermal sites in the area, so now the use of that energy is much more regulated. Slowly but surely, some of the geysers are beginning to show signs of life again, and I imagine they will become even more popular in the future.
Also at Te Puia is a school of traditional Maori arts, namely carving and weaving. There, we watched some artists working on carvings, and checked out some works in progress. Below is part of a HUGE carving that must be for the outside of a building somewhere. It was really neat to get to see these things in the works nowadays, using both traditional and modern tools.
Also interesting was the weaving portion of the school. There is a lot of flax in New Zealand, and Maori craftswomen (I think this was generally for women) take a blade of flax, split it vertically into a few sections, then scrape away the green outer layer with a sharpened shell. I don't know why they still use shells other than it must be the right amount of hard and sharp to get the green off without rupturing the fibers inside. We got to watch the process, and it looked tedious but meditative. Once the green is removed, they roll the fibers of a section together against their leg into a rope. Then, they repeat that process until they have enough of these ropes to create a woven piece of clothing or art.
Nearby Rotorua is the Whakarewarewa forest (try saying that three times fast... or once). This is a forest of many types of trees, including California redwoods, the oldest of which are a little over 100 years old. While the trees obviously aren't quite as large as their Californian counterparts, they are still quire impressive, and made for a lovely backdrop for a mid-morning hike. The forest is actually a commercial venture, though the redwoods in particular are protected from being harvested. According to their website though, it started with 170 different types of trees in the early 1900s.
One of our favorite things in NZ were the massive ferns. These are not palm trees in the picture, but actually super tall fern tree... things. They were beautiful, and provided good shade and green. They were also really neat to look up at from below - something you can't do with the low-growing ferns I'm used to in Seattle. It felt a bit like Jurassic Park being in amongst all the tall ferns. The most famous of ferns from NZ is the silver fern, which looks like any old fern from the top (it's a low fern), but the underside of the fronds is a grey-silver color in the light. Presumably, Maori people used to use them for navigation, leaving the silver side of a torn off frond facing up to mark their path through the woods. The silver fern is such an important symbol to New Zealand that they even thought about changing their flag to incorporate it. It is also the symbol seen on the NZ Rugby team's jerseys.
Our hike wound us through the redwoods, then these ferns, passed a clearing (like I said, commercial forest), and wound back into woods that could have been straight out of the Pacific Northwest. Some key differences were the lack of much moss on trees, and the addition of some neat geothermal sites, like the mud pool pictured below. The mud would bubble up releasing gasses, which was pretty neat. It's a pretty famous souvenir from the Rotorua area as its good for skin cleansing, but we opted out of that particular gift.
The weather for our hike was a little on the warm side for how we were dressed, but luckily most of it was in the shade, so we didn't mind too much. Overall, it was a really great way to get closer to some of the native (and non-native) plants in the area. We finished up at the redwoods gift shop and enjoyed some local ice cream/sorbet. I had a pear and feijoa sorbet bar that was super delicious, and Charlie had a vanilla and raspberry ice cream bar dipped in chocolate that I couldn't help but sample.
We got back to the hotel and had a light lunch of peanut butter and banana sandwiches, the aforementioned chicken flavored chips, and some Tim-Tam cookies, which were delicious. They are a chocolate cookie with chocolate mousse sandwiched in there, dipped in chocolate. They are popular in New Zealand and Australia I believe, and come in a huge number of flavors. I would liken them to Oreos here in the states.
After chilling at the hotel for a bit, we drove over to Te Puia geothermal park to check out their mud pools and geysers. It was a small-ish park, which was kind of good since we only got there an hour before it closed, but it had some pretty incredible sights. We saw much more extensive mud pools than in the woods, and although they are hard to photograph, we did our best.
There was one active geyser cluster at Te Puia, that was erupting almost constantly for the 15 minutes or so that we stood there to watch it. The main geyser just kept on kicking, and smaller ones near it would flare off to the sides every so often.
There were a ton of inactive geysers as well. They used to erupt regularly, but once people figured out they could bore holes to get geothermal energy and heat, they lost their pressure. This happened to a lot of geothermal sites in the area, so now the use of that energy is much more regulated. Slowly but surely, some of the geysers are beginning to show signs of life again, and I imagine they will become even more popular in the future.
Also at Te Puia is a school of traditional Maori arts, namely carving and weaving. There, we watched some artists working on carvings, and checked out some works in progress. Below is part of a HUGE carving that must be for the outside of a building somewhere. It was really neat to get to see these things in the works nowadays, using both traditional and modern tools.
Also interesting was the weaving portion of the school. There is a lot of flax in New Zealand, and Maori craftswomen (I think this was generally for women) take a blade of flax, split it vertically into a few sections, then scrape away the green outer layer with a sharpened shell. I don't know why they still use shells other than it must be the right amount of hard and sharp to get the green off without rupturing the fibers inside. We got to watch the process, and it looked tedious but meditative. Once the green is removed, they roll the fibers of a section together against their leg into a rope. Then, they repeat that process until they have enough of these ropes to create a woven piece of clothing or art.
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