Rotarua day 2
Today we had a geothermal adventure! After breakfast at the hotel, we headed to Waiotapu geothermal ‘wonderland’. It was about an hour drive from Rotarua, and consisted of a large national park with lots of natural sulphur & steam vents, large pools of boiling water and bright green lakes.
We trekked around with the pram for a few hours, looking at all the amazing geothermal sights. At one point, we had to leave the pram and carry Robin through part of the park, as there were lots of sets of stairs. Peter did an amazing job carrying him, and we really noted how heavy he is getting! Because sulphur has a rotten egg pong, some of the park was quite stinky (Robin wasn’t a fan of it) but mostly it wasn’t too bad. He enjoyed looking at the bright colours, bubbling waters & stream vents. We got caught in a bit of rain, and had forgotten to bring the wet weather gear on our walk (left it in the car! Doh!).
After the geothermal park, we stopped at naturally heated soaking pools. We hired a private spa, and sat in lovely warm water for 40 minutes, with a great view of the NZ country side and steam vents. We had planned to get Robin into the water, but he was fast asleep in his capsule, so we took the opportunity to have a relaxing parents break.
For dinner, we went up a mountain in a gondola, to an amazing buffet restaurant. Robin sat in a highchair (with a bit of propping up) and sucked on cucumber & tomato slices. He also had a taste of some hummus, creame brûlée & chocolate moose. The creame brûlée was his favourite, though tomato was a close second!