North Island Day 7: I Love Rotorua

Rotorua is so NOT the best place to wake up hungover, as you wander through various pockets of stink your stomach alternates between lurching, wishing you dead and thinking, "Smells like... eggs... want eggs... bacon... crusty roll... lashings of HP and a cup of tea..." Not an ideal situation. Me and Andrea headed to town to say hey to Spiky an that lot and to decide what to do with our day on account of the fact the weather was still a bit shaky so we headed back out to check out the gondola rides and the luge because a couple we'd met in Waitomo has said they were cool. We couldn't exactly remember what the luge was or did because we were pissed but it was recommended so we felt obliged to check it out.

If you ever go to Rotorua, make sure you go here. For $60 we got a return gondola (basically a cable car), a go on the fucking amazing Sky Swing and five luge rides. The gondolas were your usual cable car ride, you go up, you ooh and ahh at the pretty views, you take a millions photos and you jump off at the end and decide if you want to luge first or Sky Swing. We decided on Sky Swing. Oh my god I wish you could upload videos to this thing, it was fucking amazing! I thought it'd be like the Sling Shot in Surfers Paradise where they catapult you up into the air. It's not. They sit you down and strap you in and a winch drags you up and up and up. Then you have to pull your own ripcord to release it and send you hurtling towards the earth.

One more time.

They make you pull. Your own. Ripcord.

I can't inflict my own fear, this is why I pay other people to inflict my fear for me. Skydive? No worries. Sling Shot? Not a problem. I don't have to do anything, I just sit back and its all done for me. I get my adrenalin fix, they get a large portion of my bank account, everyone goes away happy. I had to make Andrea do it.

If you want the girly screaming in full clicky here ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/ohfuckkit/3231968215/ ) which will take you to an external site which also whores all my other photos and videos...

Once your legs stop shaking its time for the luge rides which is kind of like go karts but better in that they're gravity driven. They're really small, low to the ground and they're user operated by handle bars which to pull backwards to brake and push forwards to release the brake and roll downhill. Obviously the handle bars will make you go left and right an all, handy really on account of all the corners.
There are three tracks, the scenic one is an easy 2km ride to the bottom which they make everyone do first, the intermediate is a bit shorter and steeper and the advanced is a 1km ride with steep hills and nasty corners. As I rolled my way down the scenic track I wondered if you could tip them. I eventually decided that you probably couldn't, they're really low to the ground an all that so I decided to test this theory by taking corners as fast as possible.

Chicks Dig Scars

So yeah apparently you can tip them if you don't steer soon enough and slam into the tiny barriers which are about the same height as the luge itself. It turns out if this happens they do definately tip and send you flying head first into the ground thus potentially marring your perfect features and I now have a rather handsome graze on my left shoulder to remind me of this fact. Oh and for future story telling purposes I didn't stack it on the scenic track, clearly it was the advanced track whilst going over a jump.
The intermediate is cool if you don't mind kids tearing past you while you nurse your injuries but the advanced track is awesome! I still got overtaken by children but they bounce. After finding out that I most definately do NOT bounce I slowed down for the corners and dammit if I'd have had indicators I'd have used them too.

After suffering the trauma of falling off a plastic tray on wheels we'd had a quiet night planned but a couple of girls in our dorm had booked in for one of these Maori cultural experience things. Not really my cuppa tea but Andrea wanted to go and there was the promise of an Eat Til You Can't Move buffet so I was sold and off we went to Te Puia for a night of entertainment.
Now I've been away from home for just over two and half years now and one thing I've always insisted is that I'm not a tourist, I'm a backpacker. But I'd never felt like as much of a tourist as I did tonight, it was almost cringworthy. I mean, the show was good if you're into that kinda thing but damn it was cheesy. It was so cheesy that the smell of cheese almost overpowered the smell of eggs. But if you can get through that then the food is amazing, its a traditional steam cooked meal of meat and veg but there's also a salad and seafood buffet you can go and help yourself to. The plates they give you are small but fortuntely I'm skilled in the art of piling food up.

Once we'd eaten as much as would actually fit (and spot the backpackers, going up for more) we waddled to some tram things that would take us to their geothermal valley to see if the geyser, Pohutu, was erupting. It so totally was and it was fucking beautiful. I've never seen a geyser before, it's totally stunning.

I reckon it's worth the $95 if only for the feed and the geyser. It was pretty cool to see the Haka though and watching the fellas in the crowd get on stage and try and do it was hilarious.

We headed home and I spent the night admiring my wound and trying to decide if it made me look tough. Well I guess it might. If I lied about how I got it anyway.

written by

Koala Bear on January 19, 2009 from Rotorua, New Zealand

from the travel blog: Tiny Little NZ Road Trip

tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and NorthIsland

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