Craters of the Moon & Auckland

We stayed in Taupo for a couple of days in the hope of meeting up with Luke and Nicola, but unfortunately they were busy on the day they arrived and we are running out of time so couldn't hang around any longer.

On our way out of town Izzy and I visited the 'Craters of the Moon' just north of the lake before heading onwards to Rotorua. A large part of the North Island has natural thermal springs in the ground, and the 'Craters of the Moon' is a small area of condensed geothermal fumaroles. The walk that has been laid out by the Deptartment of Conservation weaves around most of the small craters in the floor. Some of which were a good 15-20 metres across with steam pouring out of them. The water reaches 140degrees and so sulphurous smelling steam bursts out of the ground and the acidic muddy water turns the edges of the steam holes bright red.

After spending an hour so walking around the steam holes, we got back in the car to drive an hour north to Rotorua, another town famous for its thermal springs, rightly so as you can smell the eggy sulphurous air of the town before you get there. Rotorua has plenty of shops for buying souvenirs, although it's hard finding things to buy as everything is either jade or bone carved into various maori symbols, and I'm not massively keen on either of those. We spent one night just outside of the town centre away from the smell, and moved onto Auckland the next day.

We arrived in Auckland early evening, and had a bit of a drive around the city to get our bearings. Izzy and I both agreed that we are going to enjoy this city. New Zealand has been very small communities spread out between vast distances and as nice as towns like Wellington have been, they are still small and lack a good variation of shops cafes and what not. However, the downside to Auckland is that because the city is so big, we struggled to find a rest area to sleep in. Even the internet says that there aren't any and that the police are hot on people sleeping in cars in this area.

After driving for a good hour or so we eventually found a DOC Marine Reserve car park to sleep in, although I doubt we were allowed to! Our alarm was set for 5:45am to get out of there before the DOC staff arrive to open the gates at 6am. We have now checked into a holiday park, which is costing us a fair bit, but at least we have saved plenty from the free DOC campsites we have been staying in.

This morning we went to Onehunga, just south of the city centre to visit an outlet shopping centre that Izzy had seen advertised. It wasn't as good as were hoping and the area was a bit of a dive!

This afternoon/evening we visited Auckland's SkyTower, which is the tallest building in New Zealand and the Southern Hemisphere. For $25 each we got to go to the main observation level on floor 52 and the upper deck on floor 60. We timed it just right to catch the sunset and the building and car lights beginning to illuminate the city streets.

We fly from Auckland on the 25th, so I think the plan is to spend the next few days in the city until then as there will be plenty to do (like visit a horror theme park at night! - check back after Friday for news about that)...