...wrapped in steam...

So, I have overcome my gloomy day yesterday...a problem that was actually solved is back again...it has been bothering me a lot, but I can only deal with it after I return. As the Hot Water Beach suggested yesterday, I am in a minimally active volcanic zone here, like the Eifel of New Zealand. So I am driving to Rotorua (including beautiful motorcycle curves, of course...) and hiking through the Waimangu Volcanic Valley. A well-designed flyer leads me past interesting points, always accompanied by a slight smell of sulfur in the air (No, that's not due to yesterday's chili beans). The last major mud and steam eruption was 150 years ago, today it only steams and bubbles out of all possible openings. In some places it gurgles like a teapot, the hot water mixes with normal spring water, and the animals enjoy the bathtub-warm water. The blue-green lake is supposed to be the largest geyser in the world, but unfortunately it only bubbles under the water surface. At Lake Rotomahana, a crater lake without an outlet, which means a constantly rising water level, I take a little swim in the silence until the bus arrives for the return journey. The tank is still half full, but I still refuel (New Zealand!!) because I want to drive another 200km through a national park. 10km past the gas station, the check engine light comes on, I stop and briefly disconnect the battery (that's how I always fix something like this), continue driving, and then the display shows an oil overflow. Obviously nonsense, the water and oil are fine. So I disconnect again, wait 5 minutes, and continue. The car is really fun, for the next tour I will take a mechanic on board...no, better a female mechanic.

State Highway 38 goes through Te Urewera National Park, from a normal country road it later turns into a narrow Siebengebirge hiking trail, 3m wide in total. Accordingly quiet is the traffic, I might encounter 20 cars on the 200km. A flat tire would be annoying here, I don't have the right wheel bolts for the spare tire, but who would get a tire puncture in the middle of nowhere? Except for Christian now???

Later I arrive at Lake Waikaremoana, it stretches over 54 km². It would be great to have a canoe with me here...the landscape looks untouched, I see a boat and a canoe on the water. This is a beautiful area...

Finally, the national park gives way to normally cultivated fields, the bare hills covered only with grass remind me of shorn sheep, what a magnificent landscape it must have been before the settlers started logging? Back at the Hawke Bay by the sea, I continue in a curve towards the northeast. Tomorrow I want to visit the eastern tip of the North Island.