Saturday, January 10, 2009

First stop... Rotorua

We've just returned from our tour of the Coromandel, at the north end of the North Island. It was a wonderful ten day vacation of warm weather, white sand beaches and turquoise water. But first, we stopped in Rotorua, a hot spot for geothermal activity, on the drive up.







The whole town smells of sulfur and every hotel and campground has it's own geothermal pool(s). We decided to skip the expensive goethermal areas and spas and checked out Kuirua Park instead, a city park with some bubbling mud and steaming pools.




















I'm not sure if it was quite as cool as Geyserland would have been but you can't beat the price (free!) They had a couple of built pools where you could soak your feet in the hot spring water and bridges across some of the steaming ponds (see Scott's photo.) Check the next post for photos of beautiful beaches!

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