May 27 - Rotorua

So here we are in Rotorua, and the weather is a tad on the dreary side. Clouds, wind, random downpours of rain. But the determined travellers we are, Mel and I battle on, sticking with the motto that it is better to see a wet Rotorua, than no Rotorua at all.
In order to get an overall instensive introduction to the place we decide to take up the good old lonely planet on one of its proposed selfguided walking tours. Mainly beause it's free! Light was diming so we had to make haste.
The walk started at the information centre and was supposed to end at Lake Rotorua. Technically... but after leaving the visitor's centre we walked into the Lake... obviously a wrong turn was taken somewhere... and so went the walk for another good hour and a half. We did see a very angry lake, which suitably had very angry black swans hanging out on it. As well as the exterior of a pretty anglican church and a maori meeting house (I think they are called marae???). By the time we reached the close by park of boiling mud, it was pitch black and we could see nothing, even my headlamp was no match for the dark void of the night. Thankfully Rotorua is only a few blocks wide and it didn't take long for us to get back to our hostel to make some ghetto dinner.
With our bellies full and muscles tired it was time for my favourite destination of the town. The natural healing powers of the hot springs of the Polynesian Spa (on the same street as our hostel!) overlooking the lake on a moonlight night. They had a number of pools ranging from 38-42 degrees celsius and for the low low price of $12 one can spend an unlimited amount of time in them. We spent over 2 indulgent hours.
While lounging in one of the lakeside pools we had a conversation about a number of topics with a local man who came to the pools at least a couples times a week. He travelled a lot but loved his pools. The surreal part of the conversation was that he looked exactly like Bilbo Baggins from the movie 'Lord of the Rings'. Overcome with awe and a touch of humour I was never able to quite get over this fact.
Once kicked out of the pools at 11 pm we dragged our relaxed bums back to the hostel one last time for the night and passed out in bed under big fluffy duvets. A room we had all to ourselves by the way!