We checked out of the cottage in Paeroa this morning. It was the guard’s house attached to a gold refinery building which has been refurbed, it’s latest version is the Refinery Cafe which is open Wednesday through Sunday. We have been here on Monday and Tuesday, so last night they were in doing prep for the morning. We could occasionally hear a blast of music through the common wall. Whoever was working is a fan of the Pretenders since their songs were the ones that got cranked up. The owner is definitely into music. They have live music at the cafe several nights a week and there is a record player with a fair number of LPs in the cottage.
Here are some shots of the entrance to the cafe and the interior, and of Tom’s breakfast – the vegetarian platter with a dukkah egg, malaga honey and labneh, pea and feta smash, etc. A really tasty and great breakfast meal. We have noticed that there are a lot of middle eastern restaurants or items on the menu in other restaurants.
Jeannie’s turn to drive today. We stopped by Paeroa’s iconic statue, a giant L&P bottle. L&P is an acronym for lemon and Paeroa which is a soft drink that was originally a blend of lemon juice and carbonated mineral water from the town of Paeroa. L&P is still sold in New Zealand, but I don’t think they use water from Paeroa any more.
The drive was uneventful and easy. Scenery was delightful with lush green farmland and rolling hills in the background.
Our first stop was the Polynesian Spa where we spent a few delightful hours soaking in the mineral springs. Rotorua is in a large geothermal area with hot pools, geysers, mud pools and other volcanic remnants. It is one of the major tourist destinations in the country with people coming for the geothermal attractions, many adventure sports, and Maori cultural sites. We are hoping to sample all three!
The town itself is about 70,000 people with a downtown that is big but still very typical of NZ. Quite a variety of shops and cuisines with no consistency in signage or building type; it’s a bit chaotic but has such a relaxed vibe
There’s a very large i-site (information center) where you can get everything the backpacker might need including hot shower, bus, wifi, cell phone charge and even some social media guidance.
Our bach for the next few days is a small but very well furnished studio about 10 minutes from town. The owners live next door and opened up the garage for us to store the bikes.
We learned a bit more about proper pronunciation. Bach is pronounced more like “batch” than like Johann Sebastian…
We spotted an interesting looking nighttime activity and decided to give it a go. There is a Redwoods (yes, California Redwoods) park that has 23 suspension bridges between trees and nighttime lighting created and installed by a local artist. A tame adventure by NZ standards with a touch of class to boot. I was very happy that it was dark so I couldn’t see the ground and the lighting was actually quite nice.
We decided to do a 1-hour tour of Lake Rotorua on the only paddlewheel steamboat in New Zealand. The lake is quite nice but do the walk around and skip the cheesy boat ride. We did the standard ride – you got a muffin and coffee. For an extra $26 you could access the full buffet, which did not look tempting and would then take away your opportunity to fully enjoy the view while eating. We instead had a really nice shared Mediterranean platter lunch (with wine) at a restaurant near the lake-front. We sat out on the patio which overlooked their enclosed garden area which was set up for kids to play in with a little house and a rack of MyFirstBikes.
Te Puia however is a must do.
Te Puia is a Maori owned center for cultural education and Rotorua geothermal stewardship and tourism. It’s a non-profit that houses the Maori Arts and Crafts institute which provides scholarships and programs to teach carving, weaving and other Maori craft and performance arts. A few samples of the amazingly detailed carving below.
After a really excellent tour we attended another Maori greeting and show and then a dinner which was cooked geothermally. A modern take on the traditional digging a hole heating a lot of rocks in it, then putting the ingredients inside a wet bag and covering it with dirt to let it steam for 5 hours. It’s now a brick-lined hole with a stainless steel cover, but they still use the hot rocks and the wet bag. This was the main portion of our dinner, which also included a huge number of salads, soup and dessert (I’m pretty sure the pavlovas, ice cream and fruit aren’t part of a traditional Maori meal).
After the dinner we were escorted back to the geyser field which we had seen during the day. This time it was lighted and they provided hot chocolate to sip while sitting on the “heated rocks”, some rocks carved as seats which were warmed by the geothermal heat.
Friday 9/21
Today was biking day in Rotorua! Cool but sunny morning, we headed off to find the start of the Te Ara Ahi trail, known as Thermal by bike. In the back of a hotel paring lot we finally located this
Soon we were biking past this. Yikes, do not want to make any mistakes on this ride
We had to pay close attention but managed to follow the trail through the woods and along the lake out to Te Puia (where we were yesterday) and that’s where things got interesting. Starting off with a paved downhill with a couple of hairpin turns we were very soon riding on a narrow loose gravel trail beside some gorgeous scenery.
That led to a mountain bike park that, sure enough, had a cafe with an espresso machine
We were ready for a break and were surprised to find that we had only ridden 5 miles. The narrow trails with gravel and unguarded drop offs can make the mileage go by a rather slowly.
Beyond the mountain bike park the trail turned to concrete along a busy highway. We did another 5 on that and then decided to turn back. Nice surprise: that last 5 was one of those sneaky uphills that you can’t really see and you think that you are just getting tired because you’re old. We flew back to the mountain bike park!
Now this next part I will call “Maggie’s grandma rides some gnarly trail and blows a tire”. Well, anyway, I was much less white knuckled and made it up and down some nasty hills on the way back through the gravel so I was feeling very proud of myself! We ended up following a route back that was basically through downtown Rotorua and all of a sudden this happened
Rear tire on my bike was flat as a pancake. We did a pretty quick tube replacement and it held the rest of the way back so we’ll have to check that tube and see if there was actually a puncture. 20 miles, lots of fun!
We started and ended the ride in the Government Gardens. A very traditional English garden park complete with a bowling green and a statue to a local hero from the Boer War. The Victorian building in the back was one of the early bathhouses/spas in Rotorua. It has been turned into a museum which unfortunately is closed because of damage done during the last earthquake – just a few years ago. That’s the disadvantage of having your town located in the caldera of an ancient volcano.
