Volcano Row

From Wellington we headed deeper into the North Island. There's a huge amount of volcanic and geothermal activity in the central highlands of the North Island, which means that I definitely wanted to go there. 

Unfortunately, we had a run of bad weather here. Rain forced us to ditch the canoe trip we'd hoped to do. And we'd booked a GrabOne (NZ's version of Groupon) for a two-night stay in the carrot-crazy town of Ohakune that included transport to and from NZ's most iconic day hike: the Tongariro Crossing (through the volcanoes of Tongariro National Park)...but alas, on the day we were scheduled for, the weather was uncooperative. So we took the consolation prize of mountain biking the Old Coach Road, which historically connected the railroad that ran south from Auckland and north from Welly in a section of the country that for a long time was too challenging to run the actual rails through. It turned out to be a pretty fun trip...

...also featuring what we were told are the only two curved viaducts in the southern hemisphere. Though I think SR enjoyed flying down narrow, rock-and-root-strewn paths at unsafe speeds more than I did. :)

Continuing along Volcano Row from Ohakune, we made our way to Taupo, where the geothermal action got serious. I took this walk through a magical fern-laden valley that had steam rising from geothermal hotspots, literally everywhere.

We also checked out lovely Huka Falls.

Next stop, Rotorua, where we found an entire city existing in a setting like that geothermal valley I'd seen near Taupo. There's a big public park that is just full of steam vents and these bubbling mud pools and geothermal terracing...incredible!

One fun result of this is that there are natural hot spring pools everywhere in the city...

...including at the hostel we stayed at. I never got used to how so many people just have these potentially dangerous steam vents springing up in their yards, their streets, their parks, everywhere. Do they sometimes just bust up into people's living rooms? Do the residents of Rotorua have geothermal vent insurance like Californians have earthquake insurance?

It was also fun to see the Maori culture more strongly represented in Rotorua--and really everywhere in the North Island we've seen so far, compared to the South (which is much more sparsely inhabited anyway).

Rotorua also has more black swans (imported from Australia) than you could possible throw stale bread at.

Still following volcanic action eastward, we made a quick diversion to Te Puka, the kiwifruit capitol of NZ (and therefore...the world!) I think this is the first time I've ever seen a kiwi tree!

But our real destination was the coast along the Bay of Plenty, where we stopped to appreciate the beach at Ohope...

...and then embarked upon a day trip that I've been looking forward to for about 15 years. Not long after I graduated from college, the alumnae magazine started a column featuring various study abroad programs. I read one about studying abroad in NZ (which sounded SO EXOTIC to me at the time) that included a description of taking a boat to the country's only active marine volcano, where you had to don a gas mask to walk around, plus a hard hat to protect you from anything the volcano might decide to spit at you. In other words: heaven. It's called White Island and these day trips to visit it are still run from the coastal town of Whakatane. So we got on a boat with about thirty other people and headed out of the harbor...

...into the open ocean. That's when things went wrong. The water was so choppy that even SR got seasick for the first time in his life. I'd guess about half the people on the boat were puking into paper bags the whole 1.5-hr trip out there. I only managed to keep the vomit at bay by keeping my eyes closed and focusing very hard on keeping my breakfast down. When we FINALLY got out to the island, this is sadly the closest we were able to get. I snapped this picture...

...and then started throwing up as the waves rocked us all over the place. So I closed my eyes again and kept them shut for the next 3 hours, as they tried waiting for the winds to calm down and then finally gave up and we went back to Whakatane. They said it only happens a couple days a year, but sometimes the wind just doesn't cooperate and they aren't able to land for the hike/tour. Such a bummer! So we decided to keep heading north in hopes of calmer, warmer weather....