Rotorua ramblers

I went and messed up poached eggs this morning (I blame the hob) so we added our emergency tin of baked beans to the rubbish eggs and toast. It was okay but the beans weren't Heinz. Cooking on a budget sucks. However, it filled us up so we were ready for a day of exploring. Rotorua is famous for its geothermal activity so there are quite a few thermal spas around. These were out of our price range though so we decided to do all the free stuff. This started off with a walk round the thermal public parkland on the outskirts of the town. To start with it just looked like a normal park. We found a little pool that had been made for people to put their feet in. The water was beautifully warm and was heated by the geothermal activity going on under ground. We took off our socks and shoes and enjoyed the warmth and cover from the cold and drizzly weather. It was also great that it was free! When we moved on we went further into the park and came across fenced off areas. These were filled with what looked like little ponds of mud and water, all either steaming of boiling. It didn't smell great but these natural hot pools were amazing! The earth is rather fascinating. 

When we'd spent enough time wandering through the park we walked over to the modern Maori village which is just a part of the town. There was a nice church and wooden arches and houses were built by geothermal activity which I didn't think was very safe. There was a caution sign up in the middle of a square because hot water had burst through concrete. Nevertheless, we enjoyed seeing this different side of life and even checked out the little gift shop that was there. We then thought it would be a great idea to walk along by the lake (Rotorua sits beside a huge lake) to get back into town. This was a little stupid because it started to really pour down and this walk took us well over half an hour. However, when we reached the centre of town we went into the i-site (information centre) to take cover and found a lovely warm hat for Matt to buy. It was black with New Zealand written on the front under a silver fern. This made me a little jealous but luckily, round the corner we found a souvenir shop that was selling wooly hats cheap. I got a light grey one with New Zealand written on too for $6! We were very pleased with our purchases but still wanted to shelter from the rain so we headed back to the hostel for lunch. 

After a dry lunch of sandwiches and more chocolate cake we jumped in the car and drove five minutes down the road to the red woods. From there we did a lovely hour walk through huge trees that sheltered us from the heavy rain. Feeling energetic and outdoorsy we drove further round the lake to a spring. To get to this spring we had to do another walk of about twenty minutes. The spring was ridiculously clear and incredibly deep. We both threw a 10 cent coin in and made a wish. 

Back in the car we drove back to the hostel before heading over the road to the supermarket. Tonight for tea was sausage casserole (yes, sausages again but they're cheap and have lots of flavour) with rice. We had cannelloni beans and a tomato sauce that we made and chorizo sausages that were on offer. Matt also did rice in a 'special' way by soaking it first in cold water before cooking it (it didn't work out the best for him). The chorizo sausage was really good though with the perfect amount of spiciness. We saved some of it for our sandwiches for tomorrow's lunch.