Poor Eddie, he’s not feeling well. Even though we took Linda’s advice and wiped down all the plastic stuff in the airplane with a sanitary wipe, a cold managed to find Ed. As we have an event booked for this evening we decided to keep the day low key.

The lake region just outside of Rototura is very pretty. Two of the lakes are Lake Rotoakakahi (Green Lake) and Lake Tikitapu (Blue Lake). Yup you guessed it that’s the colour of the water of each lake. Unfortunately the lack of sun prevented the normal brilliance of colours.
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The not so blue looking Blue Lake.

A third, larger lake, Lake Tarawera, has a number of interesting homes built around it, plus this boat ramp area where we saw some old Maori Rock art.

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In case anyone is wondering, yes Ed has been geocaching and once again it has taken us to something interesting off the beaten path. The cache was at the rock art..

In 1901 the first California Coast Redwood trees were planted in the Whakarewarewa Forest. Today there a number of large redwoods and lots of smaller redwoods.

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As the trees are much younger than the ones in California they are smaller but still impressive.

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Couldn’t resist the looking up at the trees shot.

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The Government Gardens in Rotorua are very beautiful. There is a rose garden plus a number of other gardens, statues, and playing fields. Including a beautifully groomed croquet field with club house.

This evening we went to a Te Po and Te Ra at Te Puia. Translation, we went for a tour of a thermal reserve, tried to see some kiwi birds, learned about traditional Maori crafts, enjoyed Maori entertainment, ate a delicious hangi feast (traditional Maori cooking method) and watch the geyser Pohutu blow it’s top as the sun was setting at a place called Te Puia.

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Anyone care for a mud bath? Maybe not in this pool as the middle of the pool is at 100 C

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Pohutu rerupting

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Looking back at Phutu.

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The modified traditional cooking method. The pit is no longer hand dug and food is covered with metal plates instead of dirt. By the way the food was delicious.

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The king and his warriors came out to welcome us to the feast.

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We were entertained with dances and songs including the famous haka (war dance). If anyone watches international Rugby the New Zealand Blacks always do a haka before the game. It is done to give the men strength and hopefully scare off the opponents.

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The sunset

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Phutu erupting again.