Wednesday 20th February

We woke to rain, or at least to the aftermath of rain. It was very dull and quite cool, but after a morning spent writing yesterday’s blog and sorting out the washing, it had brightened up and by the time we walked downtown to the Information centre and the Museum, it was brilliant sunshine and hot.

Rotorua Museum is sited in the Government Gardens in what was originally the Bath House. The gardens are lovely, but suffering from the drought at present. There are 5 bowls greens, beautifully kept and they had just finished a tournament of 12 days between Australia and NZ. The original tearoom.s, where the ladies and gentlemen using the Bath House would take tea after their treatment, has been restored to its former glory and now houses a lecture room. The building housing the Blue Baths is still in existence – it was the first public baths in the world to offer mixed bathing – and has been fully restored and reopened. The whole area of gardens and buildings is spotless, no litter, no graffiti – a real pleasure to walk in.

We bought our tickets to go round the museum and found that the price included a fully guided tour, so had a quick drink before the next tour began. We had a rather dithery elderly English gent guiding us, but he was full of knowledge, though rather slow to impart it. There was loads of time to go back to areas of interest to us when that was finished. There was a lot of information on the volcanic eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886 which decimated the area and caused widespread death and destruction. There was a section about Kiwi music, both Maori and settled NZers and a big display on B Company of the Maori Regiment, which took part in both World Wars. The original Bath House pipework and some of the baths and treatment areas have been preserved. The basement is incredibly hot, all due to the underground thermal activity. We were able to climb up to the roof area and look out over Rotorua. Seeing the surrounding hills which encircle the town and the lake, it makes you realise how huge is the crater that must have been the original volcano whose eruption created the area many thousands of years ago.

We didn’t leave the museum until 5.30pm then had a walk round the grounds where there are two areas fenced off. They contain thermal springs, one of which is an active geyser but on a smaller scale that the ones we saw at Te Puia. It erupts every few minutes but is constantly steaming. This is the Malfroy geyser. The other is the Rachel spring and it’s quite smelly, although it doesn’t spout like the Malfroy.

As we were nearing the bowls greens, I noticed that some Japanese tourists had walked onto one of them – a sin of gigantic proportions! They got a real b******ing from one of the ladies looking after the Bowls Clubhouse. Tom wanted to know where the culprits’ heads would be mounted in the clubhouse!

After all the culture, history and outdoor activity, we walked home via the supermarket to stock up on Tom’s cola, beer and wine – I get to share a little of these but I make up for them with my own treats, like Cadbury’s mini choc bars. As I hadn’t done the laundry this morning I had to do that while Tom downloaded todays photos onto the computer. He then went next door and bought takeaway – there’s so much of it that it will do us tomorrow night too! Very yummy!

We’re both so tired now so we’re of to zzzzzzzz before another busy day tomorrow.