Our final destination was Rotorua: the land of hot thermal water and mud baths! It was a pretty touristy place, but the thermal motion within the earth all around us was so amazing! The hostel in which we stayed had a natural hot sulphur spring in which we relaxed the first evening. While in Rotorua, we visited Waitapu and Hell's gate, which contained amazing geysers, boiling mud, sulfur lakes, magnesium, copper, iron and all kinds of chemical pools, you name it!
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Our main reason for visiting Rotorua, however, was to experience NZ white-water rafting. Our first day, we rafted the class 3-4 Rangitaiki (quite a peaceful, easy rafting trip). The second day, we moved up to the class 5 Kaituna, which had a 7 meter waterfall down which we plummeted happily. Our River Rat guides, Matt and Kane were AWESOME!! We definitely will recommend River Rats to all of our friends travelling to New Zealand. We have ordered photos of us going down the waterfall and will try to load them on the web when we get them!
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At right, Mom talks politics (well, criticizes Clinton) to the man who owned the campground at which we met our rafting guides, Matt and Kane. We were fortunate in that it was a rainy day, and we were the first down the river, making for a special non-touristy experience! |
Below is a photo of all three of us with our guides, Matt and Kane, after the trip down the Kaituna! What an awesome experience. Mike and I are now determined to try kayaking--I think we'll quickly get addicted!
Click HERE to see action photos of our white-water rafting on the Kaituna River...
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