Along the way to Rotorua from Auckland, we stopped at a couple of smaller towns. At Hamilton, we found a really extraordinary garden. It contained several examples of different garden styles, like Japanese and Italian Renaissance.
Click to view pix from Hamilton Gardens
Finally made it to Rotorua without incident, although I had a couple of bad moments in traffic circles. The hotel was nice enough. We had arrived just in time for happy hour so we had a beer then walked around a bit. We ended up having dinner at a pub that was in the old police station. I took the opportunity to have another lamb meal.
Next morning we walked to the city park and observed lots of geothermal pools and mud holes. There a lot in this area, and the whole town can sometimes take on a sulfur smell. That afternoon we drove up to the Agrodome, north of town to see the Zorbing! A Zorb is a large plastic ball you climb into and ride down the hill in! Well, I had to try that so in I went. You are strapped in and just roll down! It was like doing lots of really smooth somersaults, hard to describe, but worth doing once!
Back to town for some more walking and shopping. We found the large bath houses and bowling lawns. There was some bowling actually taking place so we watched to get some pointers. The grass is like a really dense carpet. Hitting the shops, Shelly found some nice jade at the Jade Factory, an interesting place that has this humongous jade boulder at its entrance.
click for photos of Rotorua
Next morning we departed, heading south to Wellington, the capital.
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