25-26 February 2018

Kia Ora! (Hello) ☺️♥️

25/02/2018: On Sunday, I had a 15 km hike around Lake Tarawera. We started at 9 am in beautiful weather, climbed trees, climbed along cliffs, and jumped over streams. It was constantly up and down, and since I hadn't slept the night before because I had to finish my work, it was really challenging! 💪🏻

My hiking companion had a pretty fast pace of 10-11 min/km! 😄 Our goal was the Hot Water Beach. Since the lake is located near Mount Tarawera, which last erupted in 1886, the water is lukewarm and super clear! Real volcanic water. 😄 The water at the Hot Water Beach was even hot where it came out of the ground!!!

It was a beautiful, although very exhausting hike! 😍

In the evening, I fell into bed exhausted. 💤

26/02/2018: Today we left Rotorua. But before heading to Turangi, we made a stop at the Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland. It was incredible!!! It's a huge park where you can admire many hot springs. Everywhere smelled strongly of sulfur and it was very hot, which is not surprising since the springs are around 100 degrees Celsius. It's really amazing, you look out over a forest and smoke rises from springs everywhere between the trees. It looks like a magic forest, very mystical! The rocks and volcanic stones have the most diverse colors. Everything that's reddish is iron, the yellow is sulfur.

I have never seen anything like this before!!!

Afterwards, we had lunch before heading to an authentic Maori village. The Maori culture is really fascinating and the village is one of the few here that still lives the way it used to. They cook their food in the hot springs, which are located right in the middle of the village. It only takes 1 minute to cook noodles. 😄 They even bathe in them!!! Totally crazy. We were even able to admire a traditional welcome dance:

Immediately afterwards, we headed towards Turangi. On the way, we made a stop at a waterfall in Taupo. 220,000 liters are moved here per second! It was soo loud! 😄

From then on, the weather gradually got worse. It started out cloudy and got colder, but unfortunately, it was already raining in Turangi. Here are two photos of a jetty at Lake Taupo in Turangi. Taupo was on the opposite side. 🤗

On Tuesday, we want to do the great Tongariro Crossing, a 20 km hike at 2200m altitude. I'm very excited, especially since I still feel yesterday's hike in my legs. 😅 Hopefully, the weather will improve.

Warm greetings!! ♥️