After a great night's sleep at the Kiwi Paka hostel, Matt and I started off to our next stops in Rotorua and Taupo before ending in Wanganui. As we picked up some meat pies at the local 'dairy' (grocery store) for breakfast, the locals were sweet enough to show us a short cut to Rotorua. It was a simple drive up north on the highway and a right at the first Petrol station. Simple enough right? Lo and behold, when we got to the first Petrol station, the clerk told us that the map we were given for free was crap and we were doom to get lost if we followed it. Instead he gave us another set of directions to follow while he pumped our gas for us. We ended up listening to this guy and two and a half hours later, we were in Rotorua. At the first signs of something to do that would get our adrenaline pumping, Matt and I pulled over to test our nerves on the sky swing and street luge.
Now for the curious, the sky swing is this contraption you get strapped into while in a sitting position, before a crane pulls you up about 100m above the ground, and you're now facing parallel towards the ground (feet dangling and all). The only way you can get down is by pulling this rope to release your chair from the crane, at which point you're plummeting towards to earth at 150kph. Now I know what our faces look like when we're scared out of our minds (videos to follow later).
As if the swing wasn't enough, we thought it would be fun to take a crack at racing down some cement tracks on street luges. That was super fun and at one point I was silly enough to almost lose control, meaning I would fly off track into the bushes. Our guide, Terry, did tell us the night before that folks have almost killed themselves on these tracks and that's why they shut down the advanced course.
Pumped up with adrenaline, Matt and I proceeded to find our way to Hell's Gate. Lake Rotorua sits in the crater of a volcano, but near the lake are steaming, sulphur beds, aptly named Hell's Gate. It was quite a smelly walk as we saw ink spots, a hot water waterfall, a medicine lake, an even one shaped like Australia. We then moved on to check out the Blue and Green lakes. This was rather interesting because we got lost and found Lake Tarawera instead of the Green Lake. In doing so, we made ourselves sick from the curvy drive (but of course not sick from the prior activities) and this was when I took over the wheel of the car. We eventually found the Green Lake by following the road sign to the 'Lookout' only to find a poor view of the Green Lake and the neighboring Blue Lake. Losing sun time, Matt and I booked it to Lake Taupo. We got to Lake Taupo just in time for the gorgeous sunset. In New Zealand, it gets dark by 5:30pm.
Driving through back roads in the middle of no where, making sure to dodge wild horses or cattle along the way (that's what the road signs said), we drove another 3.5 hours to reach our final destination, Anndion Lodge, in Wanganui. Speaking of road signs, we saw a few interesting ones that evening including one that said to watch out for kiwis and another that said, 'Be patient. Don't become a patient'. The owner of this hostel, Dion, was super nice and recommended a few things to do before leaving Wanganui, including a trip up the river to see The Bridge To No Where. Being a full day trek, we'll have to leave that trip for next time. And so ends day 2 of our trip.
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