25. My perfect day in Rotorua and heading to Queenstown

Audrey and Diane in a kiwi egg

March 2 is what I would call a perfect day. We started off with a visit to the Kiwi Hatchery which was just a short drive from our house. It is just about the only way to see a kiwi bird as they are nocturnal. Long ago there were tons of kiwi birds but then colonialist introduced rabbits for their furs. However, as we all know, rabbits reproduce like…rabbits. So they were soon up to their eyeballs in rabbits. Then they decided to bring in stoats to hunt the rabbits. The problem with this is that kiwi bird chicks and eggs are much easier for stoats to catch than rabbits as soon the kiwi bird population began dropping. I next expected to hear that they brought in coyotes or tigers to catch the stoats like the old lady who swallowed a fly, but they wisely stopped there. They are working on eliminating the stoats. Not sure about the rabbits.

Stuffed kiwi bird since we can't
get pictures of the live ones

Anyways, back to the kiwi birds. There are about 5 kiwi conservation places around the country. This one in particular has trackers on all the male kiwis they can locate in New Zealand. When kiwi birds mate, they female lays a giant egg and the male sits on it. A couple weeks later she may lay another one (they are too big to both be in her body at once). The male is responsible for sitting on them until they hatch though he will sometimes leave to eat. When one of their trackers shows a male sitting still and not moving, they know he is sitting on eggs and they go take them. The male kiwi doesn’t care much. He is used to stoats stealing eggs. There isn’t a close relationship with the parents and chicks. When they hatch, the father leaves and the chicks are on their own, fully capable of making their own way in the world. Except for the fact that they are not that big and are easy targets for predators.

kiwi at Rotorua Kiwi Hatchery

The kiwi hatchery incubates the eggs and keeps the chicks until they weigh 1 kg, about 2.2 pounds. That size makes them mostly predator-proof. Then they release them back into the wild. We were able to see 3 young kiwis where they have “flipped” their schedule so they are in light during the night and in the dark with a red light during the day. Once our eyes adjusted we got great views of them. They were each in their own large roughly 30’ x 12’ space. One was running back and forth bringing sticks or something back to his nest. The other two were pecking out food near the front glass so we got good close views of them. We were not allowed to take any pictures in the kiwi areas as the inevitable flash from a camera would be bad. Then we got to see (through a glass wall) the area where they keep the chicks, each in their own nesting box. They took one out the check it and weigh it, and they showed it to us through the glass. It was sooo cute!

They have many other animals too like this ostrich and alpacas

Shaun the sheep is a landmark here

Zorb ball

After the visit to the kiwi hatchery we went to do something I’ve been wanting to do for 12 years, ever since I started looking into going to New Zealand. Zorb Ball. It’s this giant thick clear plastic ball with another smaller ball inside. There are connections between the two balls to cushion and water inside the smallest ball so you slide around in there and stay more or less on the bottom. Then they roll you down a hill! I proposed this to my travel companions as an activity and got a resounding No! from them. Though they assured me they would be happy to watch me do this crazy insane thing. I decided to skip it since we had lots to do in our short time in Rotorua, but it turns out the Zorb place was right by where we were staying and we passed it multiple times every day so I reconsidered. Then wild woman Nancy agreed to do it with me and we made it a definite plan.

preparing to zorb

Then comes the tricky part. We go to buy our tickets. We need to sign a waiver. Nancy reads the part about releasing them from permanent injury or death and starting having second thoughts. She asked the person behind the counter if anyone ever died and she said no. The she asked if anyone had been permanently injured and she said she hadn’t heard of any as long as she’d been working there, after which Nancy asked how long she’d been working there, joking “2 days?” But she had been there for 2 years so we proceeded.

walking up to our Zorb Ball

After we changed into our swim gear we watched some people come down as we waited for the van to take us up the hill. It looked less scary in person and we saw a woman even older than us laughing and exiting like everyone else, which seemed like a good sign. Once at the top they had us “superman dive” through an opening into the ball and they zipped up the opening. Then we were off. It was super fun! Especially the beginning when we were facing forward. We picked the zig zag one as it seemed more interesting. Every time we bumped into the wooden fence wall, we were sure we were going to bounce over but we were fine. You can see the videos below of our view from the inside as well as Chris’ view from the bottom of the hill. They have a nice toasty hot tub at the top and bottom so while you’re waiting or after you’re done you can warm up a bit. And we were able to do it all from parking to driving off in only 35 minutes!

Nancy getting into the Zorb Ball

our track

inside the Zorb Ball

Going down the hill

mission accomplished!

In the hot tub after our trip down the hill

From here we went to Skyline Rotorua to see if there was a place to buy wine from the winery, Volcanic Hills, at the top of the gondola ride. Nancy and Chris had gone there on their cruise tour and loved the wine. They shared a bottle at dinner last night at the Pig & Whistle and everyone really liked it so we wanted to buy some. However, you can only buy wine from them if you pay $25 for a gondola ride to the top where there tasting room is! Crazy! That doesn’t seem like a good business model. They make the wine at the bottom of the hill so strange they don’t sell it there. (Edit: it seems they can sell the wine there but only by appointment or when they happen to be there making wine and the gondola people just gave us the short answer…to buy wine [right now] you must go to the top). Sorry Diane’s wine making friend, no unusual pinot gris for you!

hiking around the pools area

Next on our schedule was the Maori Village, Whakarewarewa. We had time to walk around the bubbling mud pools and steaming hot springs before our cultural performance. Whakarewarena is the only “village tour” in the area that is at an actual, still-occupied Maori village as opposed to a “village” created to show tourists how Maori lived. The whole village is involved. Some participate in the cultural performance while others work in the café or gift shops and others are guides. When we asked a young man how to get to the cultural performance and he called his auntie to come show us the way, she literally was his aunt!

Hot springs

Cultural performance

I was a bit concerned I might be bored during the cultural show as these usually aren’t my thing. When the lady explained all we would be seeing: the greeting chant, war calls, Haka dance, and the Ti Rakau with sticks I thought it would be really long. I was wrong. She listed them ahead of time because one blended right into the next and maybe 6 minutes later, they were done. The stick tossing was very cool with people holding short sticks like batons in both hands and tossing them to each other from different hands without having them collide in the air or dropping them. Then they brought up a bunch of men from the audience and taught them to do the Haka, which was amusing as you might guess. Finally the women did a poi dance, which are swinging around soft fist sixed balls on strings, sometimes hitting them against their hands, backs, or parts of their body. It reminded me a bit of num-chuks and bit of rhythmic gymnastics.

Our guide by the Champagne pool

After the performance we headed down to the café for our lunch which was partly cooked in a hangi, which uses the hot springs steam. It was pretty good! Next was our village tour. To our surprise, our guide was the “auntie” that the had walked us to the cultural dance earlier. She was raised in the village, but now lives outside the village. Her families home had to be torn down because the changing hot springs vents made their home unstable. Though before it was condemned it had the BEST location right near the hottest spring they call the Champagne pool, which is used for boiling vegetables. They have devised pathways carved out of rock/cement to steer the hot water over to various bathing pools where they bathe each morning. If a pool is not in use they can plug the pathway with a towel.

the baths they use

hangi steam box

Near there are the hangi pits, which are 3’ x 5’ covered wooden boxes. Every time a steam vent opens up they build a box around it with a lid of wooden boards and they have a new oven. She showed us one with a covered metal pot inside cooking someone’s dinner. The sulfur smell does not transfer into the food so it works great! Since everything is steamed you can leave it in there all day and it doesn’t get overcooked or dried out. At the end of the tour she showed us the Pohutu geyser, which was shooting up giving us quite a show. It is the largest geyser in the Southern hemisphere.

water lanes for feeding the baths

geothermal pool

clear blue steaming pool

Pohutu Geyser

the Polynesian Spa

For dinner we grabbed some takeout from a Vietnamese restaurant then got ready to try out the Polynesian Spa, a series of geothermal pools. It was much pricier than the one in Tauranga, but had nicer ambience. They had both acidic and alkaline pools and they had great views of the lake at sunset! Definitely a worthwhile activity! They had a little gift shop but the only thing I was moderately interested in was a kiwi ball: a bouncy ball covered in fake kiwi fur with felt beak, wings, and eyes.

soaking in geothermal waters

my travel coin purse

The next morning we packed up and headed to the airport. After a long 3 hour drive we were thwarted at the Pak n Sav gas station as it rejected all of our credit cards. I grabbed a man pumping at another pump and he came to help us but couldn't figure out why our card wouldn’t work. So being the kind kiwi he was he gave us directions to the nearby BP petrol station. Then he said he was going in the same direction and had us follow him so we all quickly jumped back into the car and followed him to the BP station where we had no trouble getting gas. Dropping off the car was another concern as there was a lot of road construction with dirt roads and since it rained the day we arrived, there was a strong coating of mud along the bottom of the car. The nice man at Apex Rentals said “no problem” and off we went in the shuttle to the airport. Our driver was very friendly and I decided to tip him but when I looked for my coin purse, it wasn’t there! The last time I saw it was when we tried my credit card at the first gas station. He called the car rental place and they were able to locate my pink flowered coin purse. We dropped everyone off, then he took me back to get it. Whew! I’m lucky I found out on the shuttle and not after we flew to Queenstown since my passport was in a different place. See, good things come to those who tip!

landing amidst mountains and water

The flight to Queenstown was pretty short and coming in for the landing I realized just why New Zealand is so amazing. There are tall mountains on either side of you, startling large and close. Nestled amongst these beautiful mountains are gorgeous clear lakes. It’s breathtaking! We picked up our rental car from Apex and drove to our Airbnb, It was up on the hill and had giant windows all across the side facing the lake. Absolutely beautiful!

our gorgeous view from the living room

That Wanaka Tree on land

The next day we packed up and drove out to explore Wanaka. On the way we learned we were winding along a beautiful gorge featured in The Lord of the Rings. We missed the lookout, but did find a nice little fruit stand. Once in Wanaka we drive out to a lookout over Lake Wanaka. From there we went out to see the “That Wanaka tree” which is this lone tree in Wanaka Lake. Unfortunately, there must be a lack of water and the tree is currently on the shore with just a few puddles around it. Some Asian tourists were taking super cute pictures in various poses with the tree. We were solely tempted to do some of our own but then we realized everyone on the other side were all waiting to take pictures of the tree without people in the way. Because they were 20 yards away from the tree we didn’t know they were waiting until we got closer to them.

cute little fruit stand

great meal at Fig Tree

For lunch we went to Big Fig which is sort of healthy fast food. You choose a protein, then you choose sides both hot and cold options. It was excellent! We stopped by the Nanny Goat Vineyard to do some wine tasting, partly because it was the first of only a couple places that we found with drop in wine tasting and partly because people liked the name. The name was better than the wine, which was decent but not spectacular. Certainly not as good as the Volcanic Hills. Nancy and Chris managed to find a bottle they liked and they bought it. On the way back we stopped off at the Gorge bridge, which is not the LOTR site (THAT is down some narrow rocky unpaved road into someone’s farmland). The bridge had a great view of the gorge and is also apparently the site of the first commercial bungy jumping operation opening in 1988. It’s founder AJ Hackett was the guy who started it all by sneaking up the Eiffel Tower at night and jumping off in the morning.

wine tasting at Nanny Goat

Kawarau Gorge

Kawarau Gorge from the bridge where the bungee jump is

Fernbaker meat pies, yum!

We stayed at a new place for the next 2 nights which was closer to town. For dinner we picked up some pies from Fergbaker. There are 4 businesses all next to each other: the Famous Fergburger (which had a crazy long line), the Fergbaker, Mrs. Ferg Gelateria, and Ferg’s Bar. The pie was absolutely fabulous! I’ve been trying meat pies all through New Zealand whenever I had the chance and this on was second only to the one in Christchurch. We spent the evening watching “Oddball and the Penguins” which was nice since we had just seen blue penguins and the movie was set in Australia.