Day 8 – Happy 70th Birthday Terry

Rotorua is the heartland of New Zealand’s Maori culture and a beautiful city that is easily traversed.  Many tourists and the locals are very accommodating and friendly.
Here are a few bits of interest…
Kia Ora – Hello, thank you (informal)
Morena – Good morning
Kei te pehea koe – How are you?
Hare mai – Welcome, come here.
Haere ra – Goodbye, farewell
Ka Pai – Okay, great.

It was overcast and quite cool, so we decided to head back to east coast to Whakatane in the Bay of Plenty.  This is a lovely country town filled with much atmosphere.  Beautiful shops with scented flowering trees lining both sides of the street. They smelt like Lilac, but one of the locals reckons they were Jacaranda.  I think not!!  Of course we traversed the mandatory beautiful lush green hills, valleys, farms, rainforest clad mountain ranges and yes, more windy roads.

We headed further south from here to discover more little places to Opotiki, enjoyed the east coast by the sea and when the roads were leading us to Gisborne, we thought it best to return.  This time we took a different loop via Kawerau and it truly was a most beautiful drive.  The cloud formations were stunning and promising to have some bad weather towards the north.  Little did we realise that we would be caught out and be in right in the midst of it all.  This was about an hour before we reached  Rotorua. (oh go and look at the 3rd collage!)

First it started to rain, with some fork lightening, then became quite heavy and without warning, the hail started.  I thought…beauty here goes the car insurance claim! We continued slowly and before we knew it the roads were white and covered in layers of iced up hail all over the roads. Driving was quite dangerous and I must admit, I was a tad worried.  You never know what the oncoming traffic will do.  The roads were still quite bendy and it was a case of being in low gear and travelling more than slow.  I think I held my breath for quite sometime.

We made it safely back to Rotorua only to find the 40km beforehand totally dry.  But a storm event was threatening the township.  We just parked our car under one of the beautiful huge trees and walked the blocks of the city.  Had our evening meal early and now back in our hotel room to enjoy the evening.

Tomorrow we will be heading to Palmerston North via Lake Taupo.  It will be another 5-6 hour drive, but by now we are used to this. When I have my travel books at hand, I will edit and enter some of the lakes we passed.  So for now….goodnight from the happy travellers.