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| The Artist's Pallete is a hot pool with different minerals creating the yellows, greens, and reds that you see |
| Glenn's Journal 01-10-03 New Zealand This morning we had agreed to base our next stop on the weather. We were both ready for a few sunny days and yesterday did not help. We awoke to another overcast day and we were not sure if it would rain today or not. The forecast was for more rain through the mountains but we were not sure about the coast. The next two destinations on our trip were Taupo (In the mountain region with plenty of adventure outdoor activities to participate in) and Napier (a coastal town that boasts its art deco style along with wineries). We would decide as we arrived in Taupo based on the weather outllook. We were out of the hostel around 9:30 am having said goodbye to Marcel and John (Guys from Rotterdam that we had met at the Mitai dinner the other night) and off we were. Our first stop on the route to Taupo was Wai-o-Tapu. Wai-o-Tapu is a geothermal area that has a geyser (named Lady Knox Geyser) that blows at 10:15 am every morning. This was the main attraction but there was plenty more to see. You wonder how the geyser is so regular? They actually add soap detergent to the geyser to get it to, as I would say it, "build gas" which then relieves the pressure by shooting out up to 20 meters. It was pretty cool to watch especially since we were not sitting in the area that was soaked by the overspray. While at the geyser we ran into Eugene and Audrey whom we had met the other day in Rotorua (at the Swoop). We took pictures for each other, chatted some more, and agreed to meet at the entrance to the Wai-o-Tapu park. Wai-O-Tapu park has an estimated seventy five minute walk around many different types of hot springs including a champagne pool, mud pools, and a very green lake (green being the sulphur and ferros iron). The champagne pool is the largest in the district being 60 meters in diameter and 60 meters deep. It's temperature is 74 degrees Celsius and bubbles up due to carbon dioxide. We spent almost two hours wandering though the park in amazement of nature. We left Wai-O-Tapu after 1:00 pm and we continued on to Taupo. Once in Taupo, and with some help from the overcast day, we decided to continue on to Napier. We arrived into Napier around 4:00 pm where we went in search of accomodation. We stopped at a few backpackers along or near the beach but they were either full or the beds they had left were not appealing to us. Erin is getting spoiled with our double rooms to ourselves. We drove back to the edge of town where we had passed a few hotels and found one for $70 NZ a night that included kitchen and bathroom. We realized that the town was filling up fast and quickly grabbed this place. We also did not want to be looking all night either. After we had settled in we returned to town and found a steak place along the port with a view of the beach. It was a quaint little place that had a table for two before their 8:00 pm reservation. It was only 6:30 pm so we said "no worries". Dinner was a porterhouse steak for each of us including potatoes and a salad bar. We thouroughly enjoyed dinner with a little wine and were out of there by 7:45 pm. We asked the bartender about things to do in town on a Friday night and his response was that most people stayed home. That did not say much for Napier. He did mention a couple of bars that we could go to but not much else came to mind. After diner Erin and I drove through town just to check it out. We also wanted to figure out what we could do tomorrow. We didn't find much. We returned to the hotel by 8:30 pm so we could watch a movie on television. After the movie we watched a little more television before switching to reading our books and calling it a night. |
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| Eugene and Audrey at Lady Knox geyser. We met them in Rotorua at the Swoop, which both couples tried. |