Cyclone Lusi missed the North Island, leaving some minor wind damage and not enough rain to help with the drought going on here. Even a little wind and rain can be unpleasant in a tent, however, especially a 2-
personne backapacka tent such as ours, for two days. So we did well to hole-up at Juno Hall. Plus, I had another chance to steam some greenies and have a fully satisfying mussel experience.
When we visited the North Island in 2008, we skipped Rotorua, NZ's thermal capital. After living in Montana for thirteen years,we'd seen Yellowstone in every season and plenty of other thermal stuff too. E.g., Thermopolis, Wyoming. The charm of Rotorua, such as it is, is that it is a town built right on top of the thermal area, and, while the thermal stuff is not nearly so spectacular as Yellowstone's, it is nonetheless of interest. One of the holiday parks there advertised "heated tent sites," plus its own thermal pools and hot tubs, so we headed there. Of course, everything in Rotorua is "heated" to some extent.
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Our "heated" tent site at Rotorua; just beyond the little fence was a narrow
canal that smoked, bubbled, and hissed, um, ominously |
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| Thus; sulfur fumes pervade Rotorua |
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| And, a hundred feet beyond that, Lake Rotorua |
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| With its gaggles of black swans |
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| And its own thermal phenomena |
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The holiday park had its own bird population, the pukeko, or swamp hens;
harmless but very curious and fearless |
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Plus, a hangi, sort of a Maori-style cooking steamer; most of New Zealand's Maori
live on the North Island--wisely, IMHO--and Rotorua is one of their population
centers |
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Well, a traditional hangi would be an underground oven, but this has much the
same effect |
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We had steaks and corn on the cob that evening, and Vicki cooked the corn in the
hangi; a couple from New Plymouth sat down next to us sporting an entire dinner
they had prepared in the hangi |
