Rotorua, New Zealand - Day 2

We spent the evening in Rotorua at Rock Solid Backpackers. I found this hostel on Hostelworld.com which has always been a very reliable source. They had a 98% rating at the time I looked them up and it cost us about NZ$19 each to stay in a 4-bed female dorm room. I have to say I was really impressed by their accommodations. 

 To start with their customer service was excellent. We were greeted right away upon entering and were quickly set up with everything we needed. They had a ton of information on things to do in the city and their receptionists were very well acquainted with what was good to do and how to get around.

I also felt very secure in their facility. They had a lounge area that was open to anyone with a pool table, TV, free movies, a book exchange and couches to hang around on. However, to get up to where the living areas were you had to open one door with a code then a second door with a key and then finally your bedroom door with a second key. In addition, they had strict policies that only paying guests were allowed anywhere up in the living area. Honestly, I've been fine in hostels with far less security, so I was confident that my stuff was safe at Rock Solid.

We woke up bright and early the next morning to continue our adventures in Rotorua. For our second day we decided to do some nature and culture touring. In the morning we went out for an adventure with the Rotorua Canopy Tours company, and in the afternoon we spent a few hours exploring the Whakarewarewa Maori village.

     

Rotorua Canopy Tour

      

      Sunday morning we were picked up outside our hostel by the large white Rotorua Canopy Tours van. As I stepped inside to find a seat I was greeted by our tour host for the day and 4 other guests that would be coming along with us.

      

      The van took us to the RCT main building where we met another 4 guests to make a total of 10 people in our touring group. What were we signing up for you may ask? Well maybe this picture will give you a clue...

     

       If you didn't guess from the picture, Rotorua Canopy Tours is a company that takes groups of people out for a zip lining tour through the treetops in the nearby Dansey Road Scenic Reserve. It is one of the last remaining untouched forests left in New Zealand and RTC has been raising money through their canopy tours to aid in their conservation efforts.

We started the tour by getting set up in our harnesses and helmets and then hopping in the van for the 20 minutes ride to the reserve. As soon as I stepped out the van and turned towards the forest, I was greeted by a huge thick wall of green.

 A small path snaked away from the road into the dense foliage. The air was thick with the musty smell of forest and plant life. As we walked along the path, we were surrounding by huge thick trees rising into the sky and creating a dense canopy above while ferns and palms filled the gaps at the forest floor. Our tour guides informed us that this was one of the only forests on NZ with untouched trees. Most other forests had been cut down long ago and replanted later. Some of the trees we walked by were hundreds of years old.

Surprisingly, the forest was actually pretty quiet. As I later learned, before people started arriving on New Zealand it was an island almost entirely composed of birds and reptiles; there were no native land mammals. Therefore, many of the native New Zealand birds had not evolved the usual defenses against those types of creature. In fact a large percentage of their natural birds were flightless and lived in burrows in the ground. When people started coming over however, they brought many land mammals with them such as rats and possums. These animals quickly decimated the native bird population and caused many species to go extinct. The Dansey Reserve is one of the few places where they are attempting to revitalize that population, but there are still shockingly few birds given how big the reserve is, so the normal forest noises you might expect to hear are often absent.

Soon we reached the first platform on our journey. There they gave us a rundown of the safety procedures. There were ten platforms total throughout the tour with 7 zip lines and 2 bridges to cross.

 One of the tour guides was always in front of the group to help each person onto the platforms and one was at the back of the group to hook you on to the line and make sure everyone got across.

It was a beautiful and exciting journey through the tree tops. The harness hooked you to the rollers on the group using two thick ropes. Other than those points of contact you were free to swing your arms and legs freely as you flew through the canopy.

   

The highest platform was about 70 feet off the ground and the longest zip line was 220 meters.

The whole tour took about 3 hours. It was extraordinarily beautiful and very exciting. I was able to get some really gorgeous photos and even got to see a couple New Zealand Silver Ferns which stand as the national symbol. 

I would recommend a trip with Rotorua Canopy tours to anyone who loves to mix in a little adventure with some nature sightseeing. The tour was fun and informative and we got to meet a lot of really cool and interesting people.

Nothing like swinging through the treetops to bring a bunch of strangers together!

      

Whakarewarewa

After being driven back to our hostel we had a quick stop for lunch at The Brew café and bar (where I had a delicious BLT and chips) before catching the #2 bus out to our next stop for the day. Getting off the bus we had to walk about two blocks before arriving outside the gates of the Whakarewarewa Maori village.

It doesn't look like much from the outside, but as you cross the first bridge into the village you will quickly notice that it is very different than the usual tourist stop. A group gathers at the edge of the bridge with a tour guide to take you around the village. You don’t have to go with the tour, but I would recommend it as it is the only way to really understand the history and importance of the area.

       

Crossing the bridge you can instantly see that you are standing on top of an active geothermal area. Large steam clouds rise from hot bubbling pools just on the village’s edge.

Old worn houses are perched just feet from the hot pool which are fenced off for safety.

The tour guide took us through the different hot pool and explained their history with the village. Whakarewarewa calls itself a living Maori village. As the tour guide explains all of the people in the village actually live there and use the natural resources, and many of them work during the day in normal jobs and careers in Rotorua. Every house in the village is owned by a family who can trace their lineage back to the original tribe.

Perhaps one of the neatest things to witness in the village is the fascinating blend of traditional and modern. The villagers love to continue to use the natural resources of the geothermal area they sit stop. The tour guide showed us how they use wooden boxes over hot steam vents to cook their meat...

and can boil various vegetable in the hot pools.

I even got to try some of the delicious corn they boiled in the hot pools right before my eyes.

In addition they will siphon off water from the pools into large concrete holes that they use for bathing. The minerals in the water are supposed to be very good for the skin and health and the villagers use the natural baths often and regularly.

Very few people need to pay for heating or appliances because they have the natural heat from the Earth for free.

Yet, the villagers still work normal jobs, drive cars, watch TV and do other modern everyday things. I love and recognize the beauty in how they've chosen to live their lives. They keep their heritage, speak the Maori language and use the resources at their fingertips, but still take advantage of the conveniences of the normal world. I think it is inspiring to see people who recognize that being modern doesn't mean you have to give up the uses of the world around you.

After the tour, we continued to explore different parts of the village. Everywhere we had the chance to see the signs of the slow moving Earth beneath us.

A bubbling hot mud pool that we found just to the side of one of the houses.

It may not look it, but the water in this lake is actually boiling hot!

The brief eruption of a geyser just off of the Whakarewarewa village borders.

 As we left the village it was time to head back to where our bus would pick us up to go home. It was a short but exciting weekend. It provided me with a much needed break from my studies and while I wish I could have had more time there, I appreciate the things I did get to see and experience. I hope that if you ever come to New Zealand you’ll take the opportunity to see the variety there is in Rotorua.