Groan...not mentioned the weather for ages, been pretty good up till now! Of all days to turn wet and windy it had to be today. But I suppose with ducks liking the wet it should be expected! Yep, today we had booked a 2-hour tour on an amphibious genuine WW11 landing craft. But that wasn't until 3.30pm so what to do until then.
Hells Gate is what we did! Mud and sulphur baths on offer...for a price of course, but we opted for the scenic walk around the site.
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| Ian is there somewhere. |
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| It is supposed to look like the map of Australia. I suppose there is some resemblance. |
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| Ian tried his hand at wood carving. Made quite a good job of carving a Kiwi. |
One would think no animal would be mad enough to venture in the Hell Hole. Not so!!!
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| How many legs does this Pied Stilt have?? |
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| They got very near to the boiling water! |
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| And this beetle doesent mind warming it's feet. |
With the intermittent drizzle, I didn't hold out much hope of a decent 'Duck tour'. But the gods must have been shining on us as the rain stopped and the sun came out, even though but briefly. We entered three of the 4 lakes with the craft, the 4th being the green lake, Rotokakahi, and sacred to the Maori. It is forbidden to go anywhere near as it is very sacred (tapu) to the Rotorua Te Arawa people and they are the only ones allowed to fish, boat or swim in that lake. The other three lakes were Tarawera, Tikitapu and Okareka.
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| On Lake Okareka |
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| Checking for weed. |
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| Lake Tikitapu (blue lake) top. Lake Tarawera bottom |
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| Rainbows were the order of the late afternoon. |
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