Taupo and Rotorua

Our last Loyola-sponsored trip, to the North Island tourist destinations of Taupo and Rotorua, rivaled our first trip as one of the best. Since I haven’t really utilized bullet points on this blog, what better time than now to give a little run-down of that weekend, item by item.

• The first stop was some glowworm caves outside of Taupo, a truly incredible site. After walking through the caves and getting a bit of a history, they put us on a boat that went through the darkest portion of the cave, and the ceiling looked like a night sky littered with blue-green stars. It was a very pretty sight. However, I couldn’t help but notice that admission was $60 (thank you, Loyola). I’m sure we got a group discount, but they made at least $500 off of our small group for a tour that took 45 minutes. What a racket! I’d love to be the guy who owned that.

• The hotel we stayed at in Taupo was very, very nice. The dinner we got there was delicious, and everyone was so mesmerized by the fact that we all had our own TV’s that we all just laid in bed and watched “Step Brothers.”
• Day two started early, and after a buffet breakfast at the hotel, we went for a ride on a jet boat out by Huka Falls in which we did all kinds of spins and our driver made it a point to almost hit everything he possibly could. Huka Falls isn’t very high, but the sheer volume of the water that goes through it is incredible. This was also the first time that we smelled the sulfur from the thermal activity in Rotorua, which I can honestly say was the worst part about anything in New Zealand.

• Speaking of the thermal activity, we got a presentation that first day in Rotorua about their tourism. The area, especially it’s fabled “Pink and White Steps” was New Zealand’s main attraction until the late 1800’s when there was a volcanic eruption and everything was destroyed. Over time, however, they developed other ways to utilize the thermal activity and make it a viable attraction. We had two separate trips to such areas, one to a thermal valley that contained a boiling hot lake and 200-degree soil, and another with geysers.

• The second night, which we spent at a hotel in Rotorua, was highlighted by a trip to a Maori village in which they put on a performance of tribal dances and gave a bit of insight into the culture of the native Maori, as well as prepared a Hongi dinner. The Hongi refers to the way the meal is cooked. More or less, they dig a hole in the ground and cook the food in there. They had everything you could possibly imagine to eat, and all of it was delicious.

• The next day was extremely fun. Not only did we get to see a sheep show, in which ten champion breeds of sheep were shown to us and we got to see one get sheered on stage, but we also got to go Zorbing. One of the simplest ideas in the world, Zorbing is where you get inside of a big rubber ball and they put a little water inside and proceed to roll down a hill. Truth be told, it was pretty exciting. Such simple thrills don’t come easily.

• On the last day, we went up the Rotorua gondola and enjoyed similar activities to the one in Queenstown, except the luge track in Rotorua was much faster and much longer. That’s all I have to say about that.

• Since it might not be worth it’s own post (and this is probably the last one), I’ll add my return trip to Rotorua about a month later in this post. A few of us rented a van and drove down to go white water rafting in Rotorua, and we ended up going over the highest commercially-rafted waterfall in the world. Of course, going over a 21 foot waterfall in a rubber raft can be dangerous, as I found out when I failed to assume the brace position and smashed my face on my kneecap when we hit the water. After checking that all of my chompers were still in place and asking several times if my nose was crooked, I sucked it up and decided that a little bloody nose never hurt anyone. In fact, it kind of made me look tougher.

Overall, this trip was much more fun than the Marae weekend if only because we were constantly doing stuff that cost money, except we didn’t have to pay for it. Also, it was nice to be with everyone without really arguing, as we didn’t have much say in what was going to happen. It would have been nice to have a longer break from the group before we went on another trip together, but it ended up going very well.