This is the second part of our trip. This is a thermal active region, there are a lot of hot spring and geysers in the Roratua area.
This is a hot mud pool, it is between Taupo and Roratua. There are hikes and hot bath and other tourist stuffs along the way, but they all charge money so we skipped most of them.
This is the Tehokowhitu-A-Tu village. It is a mauri village that was built on top of a hot spring area. People still live here and do business with tourist and I guess work in the city. The next picture is a slow cooker box buit on top of a thermal vent. They use this to cook stew and meat.
The Parekohuru hot spring. They cook corn and vegetables here, no meat because the hot spring is pipe to a communal bath. The second picture is two Geysers near the village.
This is the communal hot tubs. Each family comes and take turn with the hot bath. They also put on a little show, pretty good for $25. Other places has hangi (like a laou) that cost around $60 each, but that includes dinner.
After show pictures. The tongue and bulging eyes signify fierceness before a battle, it's suppose to scare the enemies. 8b
After that we drove to the Bay of Plenty area and Coromandel peninsular. We went to tons of beaches. Most are very nice, not too busy at all this time of the year (early spring.)
This is the Hot Water Beach. At low tide you can dig a hole and the water will be hot. There is a hot spring right on the beach, pretty cool. I got the little shovel for $10 and was going to take it home as a souvenier, but by the end of the trip I had too many things to take so it was left in Melbourne. They did let me check it on the flight from Auckland to Sydney. All the airport guys were playing with it. 8)
After a few days on the beaches, we drove north pass Auckland to the Shakespear Regional park. It was a little peninsular, very nice view. I took a little hike up to the view point and saw some moo cows. Here I am with my one week stubbles. Notice I was only wearing two outfits during this week long trip. We only found one Superloo in Taupo, $2 for hot shower. Good thing it was still pretty cold....
This is the Aspen House B&B. The location is great, right in downtown Auckland, but the beds were super crappy. This is the first time mom and dad stayed at one of these places. We had 3 beds in this room and access to shared bathroom, kind of like a dorm. It was around $90 a night, much cheaper than anything else in downtown. I didn't want an 8 bunks room.
So on a free day we walked to Auckland Domain - this is like a huge park. There are a bunch of cricket fields, botanical garden, duck pond, hot houses, and also the Auckland museum. The suggested donation was $5, but you can guess how much we donated. 8)
Queen Street in downtown Auckland. The bus mall is here and there are tons of shops, restaurants, internet cafe down here. Auckland was pretty hilly, it was pretty steep to our B&B. Anyway, here is the foodcourt where we spend most of our meal time. Food was the cheapest we could find and it was not bad. $8 for a large plate so we usually get two and share. Whew, that's it for New Zealand, next stop Sydney.
Click here to see more pictures. They are in reverse Chronological order, I don't know how to change them.
