Rain, rain, go away...

Since our last post, it has been raining every day and isn't going to get better anytime soon :(. Instead of starting our hike, we have been travelling in the Central Plateau region.

From Napier, we went to Taupo. Taupo is situated on Lake Taupo, NZ's largest lake. In Taupo we visited a dam and watched the river level as they opened and closed the floodgates of a dam. This was a bit more interesting than it sounds because the river was quite narrow after the dam, so the level rose really fast and created some pretty intense rapids.

After the dam, we went on a walk to the Huka Falls. The best part of the walk wasn't the falls (which were pretty nice), but the hot water stream at the start of the track. That's right...hot water stream! There was a pretty wide stream that was about knee deep and about 45 degrees Celsius right off of the track where we had a rest and soaked our feet...pretty awesome.

Yesterday we drove from Taupo to Rotorua. Rotorua is a touristy town in the centre of the thermal region. It is crazy driving through this region because there is steam rising from the sides of the road and a pretty strong smell of sulfur. In the evening we went to a Maori cultural performance. The evening started with an entrance of Maori warriors on a war canoe, followed by a traditional greeting and performance. After the performance, we had hangi, a feast cooked in a traditional method of digging a hole, filling it with hot rocks, burying the food with the hot stones, and letting it cook for several hours. The whole evening was really cool and I'm glad that we splurged on it.

This morning we visited a thermal area. We saw a geyser erupt 10-20 m in the air and then we toured the grounds. There were huge craters, boiling mud pools, and coloured lakes...it was really awesome.

Right now we are hanging out in the hostel. We don't really have any firm plans for the next few days because except that we will be keeping our eyes on the forecast for when we might be able to start our next hike.