30th January 2019. Rotorua

A photo for my coffee loving family and friends!

Well, it made me smile, and yes we did have a coffee here before we started the days activities!

There were many different things we could have done, but on the basis that the weather was hot again, we decided to head to Whakarewarewa forest. This is a large forest that is both a working forest with large timber plantations, and a recreational area with walking, cycling and riding tracks as well as more specialist mountain biking tracks. We obviously chose the walking tracks!

The forest was started in 1899 when species from all over the world were originally planted here to see which ones could specifically be grown for timber. The Radiata pine was the stand out tree and is now the most important commercial species in the country, but the Californian Redwoods that were planted also thrived and there is now a big plantation of them. We had never seen them before and they are magnificent.

Can you spot Geoff?! It was beautiful walking through the trees, and cool too. There were views to be had too. This one over the geothermal pools at Whakarewarewa.

An interesting fact is that a lady by the name of Mary Sutherland, who graduated from Bangor university in 1916, was the first woman forestry graduate in the world and she worked for the NZ Forest Service between 1923 and 1933, some of that time in Rotorua.

This Park was totally free to park at and walk in and there were loads of people around, although once away from the main sites you were on your own and met only a few people. We are sure that this would not be the case in the UK!

Later in the day we had another adventure! We took a float plane for a flight over Rotorua and the surrounding area. This included the lake of Rotorua which was formed when a magma chamber collapsed some 10,000 years ago. In parts it is 183 metres deep. There are a number of lakes in this area as a result of the volcanic activity, of different ages and with different histories. One of the largest is Lake Tarawera. The volcano of the same name erupted in 1886 and we flew over the crater it has left.

Geoff loved this flight. I did too, but was very glad to be down, even with a landing on water! It was a little plane, just 10 passengers - Geoff sat up front with the pilot! - and very bumpy, particularly when flying over the crater.