24th April – Orewa to Rotorua

Left for Rotorua, driving along SH1 and SH5 via Cambridge.

The scenery was not as attractive as the Northland. Very flat in most places ‘till we got close to Rotorua.

We saw lots of lovely house along the way, mostly single storey dwellings (in the UK they would be called bungalows) with sprawling buildings.

I hope we are not going to be disappointed with Rotorua, so much has been said about it and it’s volcanic surrounds.

We decided to camp at the Blue Lake Top 10 campsite. The lake was indeed blue – beautiful with hills behind it. You can’t see the blue from the photos but it was blue – really.

The lake is really called Lake Tikitapu.

There is a green lake nearby to it (Lake Rotokakahi), but it’s Tapu (or sacred) to the Maori and there is no swimming, boating or fishing.

We went for a walk along the lake (blue). It should have taken about 1.5 hours covering some 5.5km.

¾ long the way we lost the track (wide track – but it was getting dark) and decided to walk back the way we came. A good work out.

My Mum was good and she sped up and overtook Richard & I.

The reason for the speed was that it was getting dark and it would have been full dark at about 6pm. For my Mum, it was not good to get lost in the forest as there were lots of spirits to lure you to your doom. I had to keep assuring her there was a track and we were not lost. She sighed with relief when we finally came out the forest.

It was dark as we emerged and the stars were out when we finally got back to camp.

We stayed at the camp site for 3 nights.

Dinner was tuna steak, Kumara and Gem Squash, very nice.

An early night tonight! The camp site was facing the lake and was full of people by 7pm.