Rotorua, New Zealand

February 17, 2011

Senne's Summary: We headed into Rotorua to see geysers, go up a gondola and walk around town. We had a lovely dinner in the evening and Selwyn blessed our Taonga for us.

This morning before we left to go into Rotorua, Trevor showed us how he works his dog with the sheep. It was actually pretty interesting to watch. Who knew dogs could be so smart (those of you who knew our dog…. well… you know smart was not his forte!)

We headed into Rotorua with Fran and stopped at Te Puia where we saw thermal springs, mud pools, a "cooking pool" and geysers!

 

Apparently people used to cook things in the cooking pool… it looked like a giant pool of boiling water. Not sure if I’d want to cook something in there… the smell was pretty sulphury!

Don’t think I’d want to get into the hot mud pool… would it burn you? But they do sell the mud from the hot pool as it has mystical healing qualities. (I don’t need any… I’ve given up on attempting to avoid the wrinkles… I’m just going to let them wrinkle me!) The geyser was pretty cool. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one before. (If I have, I’ve forgotten… but I won’t forget this one… because I’m writing it down… and one day years from now, I’ll look at the book this will become, and say… “Oh yeah, we did see a geyser!”)

Next we headed over to the gondola and went up to the top. This one was not as steep as Queenstown, but otherwise pretty much the same. The view from the top was beautiful. This is where we stopped for a little lunch with a view.

Next we thought about going to Rainbow Falls… which is apparently a wildlife park. The cost was ridiculous to get in… so we skipped it (seriously… you’re driving people away New Zealand tourist attractions!)

We walked around town a little bit, while Fran went off to do some shopping.

As we were walking through town we came across the “Naked Bus” again. Now I’m not precisely sure what happens on there… I am curious let me tell you. We took a picture of it so you could see for yourself. Now look at the ad at the back… do those look like the kind of people who ride the Naked Bus?!?

This is me being excited about the Naked Bus!😉

We also ended up going by this big park where they were having a free Zumba class. There were probably 500 people of all ages, sizes and shapes doing this free class. It was really cool! My favourite participant was the little girl who was about 6. She had on her pink shorts and t-shirt with her cowboy boots 😀 Nothing like doing a little exercise in your cowboy boots!

Next we headed for dinner with Fran’s sister Maria and her husband Selwyn. Trevor and Merleene also came in to join us. It was a very nice dinner at a buffet kind of place. I remembered to look at the desserts first so I didn’t get full up on food and miss out!

Selwyn is a minister and had brought his water to bless our Taonga at Fran’s request. Steve and Selwyn went out to the parking lot. Steve and I thought they were just getting the Taonga out of the car, but unknown to us, the blessing had to occur outside… so I missed it.

Steve told me later about it… so I’ll let him guest write about it. (Don’t worry I’ll steal the keyboard back so this doesn’t get too long 😉) Witnessing Selwyn bless the Taonga was very cool. It probably helped that it was a full moon.  Selwyn took both Toanga in his hand, said a few words in Maori before sprinkling holy water on them.  At this point I fully expected the blessing to be completed…boy was I wrong, now is when it started getting good.  The blessing went on for what seemed like about two more minutes, with Selwyn speaking the entire time, rarely pausing for breath.  What an amazing  two minutes.  The blessing was all in Maori so I could not understand any of it, and this may sound odd, ”but I could feel it”.  It wasn’t simply, “please bless these Taonga and keep the wearers safe”...It felt as though Selwyn was having an emotionally charged conversation with many different spirits, and asking for their help.  Most of the blessing was done with his eyes closed as he spoke, but occasionally he would look to the sky (It felt as though, this was when he was calling on a different spirit).  His face was very expressive throughout the blessing.  It’s impossible to describe, I simply can’t do it justice…the entire scene just felt “right”.  It was one of the most powerful scenes I have ever had the privilege of being a part of (I’m just sad that Lisa was not there to experience it as well).   I was truly touched that Selwyn took the time to do this for us.

After this we drove out to stay with Maria and Selwyn. They live outside Rotorua (on a VERY curvy road) before Whakatane… I think it was called Kawerau…the names of places are hard for me to remember… they are loaded up with vowels…very similar to Hawaii. While we were at their place we did feel three little earthquake tremors… apparently they happen fairly frequently. This was as a bit disconcerting at first, until Steve reminded me that the little ones were good because it means they are relieving pressure a little at a time.