Since we left Waitomo so late we got into Rotorua late in the afternoon. We stayed in a private room with en suite at a newish hostel close to the city center. While we were there Rotorua was having an outdoor dining festival on a street full of restaurants. We walked through the place and eventually picked a great Italian place. After dinner we picked up a few RTDs and headed back to the room for some drinking shenanigans. The next day we drove to a thermal area called Orakei Korako, which has had the largest sinter terraces in New Zealand since the Mt Tarawera eruption destroyed the Pink and White Terraces in 1886. The entrance to Orakei Korako is right by the Emerald Terrace, which is a beautiful jade-green colour. Unfortunately some geniuses decided a dam was necessary and about 2/3 of the geothermal area is now under water. What’s left of Orakei Korako is still pretty cool, and it has one of only two caves in a geothermal area in the world.
When we got back to Rotorua we went for lunch, and on the beer list they had a couple of beers from a local brewery called Croucher. I decided to ditch my usual drinks of choice because I wanted to see what this boutique brewery had to offer. I tried their ale first and it was delicious, but the moment I tried their pilsner I was hooked. I liked their beer so much I made sure to look up where to get it, and as it turns out the place in Wellington where I get my spirits from also stocks Croucher. Choice.
The next day we went up to Mt Tarawera (the jerk that blew up the Pink and White Terraces). It was just Georgia and me along with an older couple from Kansas, USA. They had only been in the country two days and were on their way down to Queenstown and Dunedin to visit friends but were stopping in Rotorua to do the touristy stuff. We got picked up at 8am and the guide drove us up the mountain to right near the summit of the main crater. We had to walk up to the lip of the crater and it was a cold and wet time up on top of the mountain. After some instructions we set off down the scree into the main crater. It was slow going as the rocks were all loose and you had to sort of slide your way down. It was awesome being inside the crater, and I really got a sense of how big the explosion was just from how big the crater was. We got to wander around for a bit and talk about the mountain, and then we walked into an adjoining crater and on our way out. We were then driven back into Rotorua, were we had some quick lunch; then we took off, headed for Auckland.
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