Rotorua - City of Stink.
So, I'm elsewhere now. And I have to confess I do have a bit of a travel bug. I've found it really easy to meet new people and so far there hasn't been a day where I'm completely on my lonesome (much).
Rotorua is fun. So far I've attacked several of the main attractions... the Maori evening, the sulphur pools & the almost zorbing. The Maori evening was okay but a bit too much rain made it a bit too unpleasant. Really, it reminded me of a school play. The Maoris all seemed really young - some of them were even giggling behind their hands thinking we couldn't see. One Maori guy snotted in his intimidating dance thingy and I was trying to work out if it was part of the 'play' for quite some time... I'm thinking it wasn't but he improvised well. After the play came the dinner. A biiiiiiiiiiig 'hangi' buffet, which was cooked in the ground and covered by cloths... or at least it's supposed to be but wasn't so much. Still, it didn't stop it from tasting like ground. Anyway my overall reaction to the Maori evening was 'blah' - too busy, too wet and too sloppy a performance (I sound like I critic Maori evenings professionally! I don't though).
This morn I bagged a lift with 3 German girls (who just happened to be staying in my last hostel in the same room a trillion miles away) along with my friend David from Eastbourne and off we went to the Sulphur pools. Again the weather was blah so it put a downer on it slightly but the pools were interesting to see... and smell.
Last but not least was almost zorbing. Me & Victoria (my American bum chum) had the spontaneous notion to go zorbing at 2 o clock in the afternoon with no idea how to go about getting there. So we waited at a bus stop for quite some time, and then came to realize that neither of us actually wanted to do the wet zorb. The dry zorb was off as apparently it was too windy so there was a risk of blowing away, yet that sounds extra fun to me. We instead decided to get some muffins, which was, as Victoria would say - intense.
Tomorrow morning I'm off again being the travel slut that I am. This time I'm Hamilton bound before making my way down to National Park to slave away for however long at Blue Duck Lodge, woop.