Rotorua: Phew!! What Is That Smell?

There are lots of remarkable things about the vacation town of Rotorua, New Zealand: the beautiful Lake Rotorua, with affordable hotels lining the main roads through town, the amazing geothermal pools and related sights in the region, opportunities to learn about Maori culture in performances for the tourists here, and of course a kiwi rescue and research facility.

But the most remarkable thing to us as we drove into town was the distinct odor of sulphur in the air, a typical feature of any area with extensive geothermal activity. Our hotel owner said we'd get used to it, but we didn't really. It wasn't noxious or terrible-smelling or anything like that; rather, it reminded us of driving through a small town in the south that has a big chemical plant or a paper mill nearby. Not exactly pleasant, but it won't kill you.

Rotorua is so central to the North Island that if you visit it on the way north, you're likely to pass through town again on the way back south. And since our one night here mainly featured Laura and me getting into an argument (if you must know, it was triggered by a debate we had on how to handle writing this blog...), we later decided to stay here another night on the way back from our drive up north to the Whangarei area. We didn't want to pass up the chance to see some examples of the volcanic activity here, and Laura was hoping to get a chance to see some Kiwi birds too.

Plus, the hotel we stayed at had a really nice hot tub.


Stay tuned! Tomorrow we'll run two posts: one featuring some creepy, burping and bubbling geothermal mud pools, and another with the key sights inside the Waiotapu geothermal park.