Rotorua

I flew into Auckland weary and grimy, after a ridiculous three flights from Australia, and tottered around the airport, practising maintaining a precarious balance between the towering backpack on my back, and the equally formidable ‘day’ pack resting conveniently on my well-fed tummy. A few immediate observations, a sign of things to come – the chirpy stewardess announcing, “Welcome to Eeh Newww Zeelund (Air New Zealand)”, the chirpier sign at Auckland airport announcing free coffee for all arriving passengers, an amazingly efficient Vodafone counter at the airport, the lime-green, bug-like minibus that whisked me off to the central bus station where I was to meet an old friend and head to Rotorua, four hours away. The jigsaw, all falling into place.

Rotorua is clearly a slightly insane town. And one that’s on fire, permanently. Mama Nature appears to be having one helluva fat chuckle with this Maori hotbed. How else do you explain walking down a street in the midst of sulphurous steam that spews all around you, from gutters, wells, pits (both natural and man-made), ponds, brooks, and from the very ground you walk on?

A stroll into the free-entry Kuirau Park only confirmed this suspicion; it was like walking into a scene from The Village. Events transpired such – so there we were, blithely walking along a lane now quite at ease with this odd landscape all around, and decided (as all such things are decided), without deep deliberation of any kind, to amble beyond a not-so-innocuous sign proclaiming “Thermal Park. Keep to trail else-terrible-things-will-happen-booo-haaa skull-and-crossbones-etc”. Unblinkingly, we walked on, and then on, for the next hour or so, gasped awfully much and took an inordinate number of pictures.

It was a world like nothing I’d ever seen before, awake or in dreams. One breath of clarity, the next obscured by the thickest thermal fog. Spines of long-dead trees, vitriolic blue ponds, bubbling mud, and heat, wet heat in every direction. Visions of angels, demons, and wraiths sprang to mind, and the dazzling scene before our eyes enmeshed with the urgent, pressing odour diffused everywhere. Sensory overload. Unspeakably fantastic.

On the other side of town from Kuirau Park lies Lake Rotorua, on whose shores the town was first built. While not as immediately compelling as the park, this lake has its own magic, once you’ve taken the effort to look beyond its decidedly unhealthy blue-green-yellow-brown hue. A brisk walk around the shore took us to even more thermal fields, each ceaselessly and angrily alive, hissing, sputtering, trembling, and threatening all who dared deny those precious lands the respect they own.

And finally, two things that cannot possibly miss mention – Treks Backpackers, and Fat Dog Café in Rotorua. The former is a spanking new backpackers that’s so cheap and so clean, you’ll spend hours fighting the urge to scan every corner with a fine-toothed comb for bugs or snakes or kiwis or something. Regardless to say, all we discovered were immaculate carpets, fluffy beds (yes, beds, not bunks! In a dorm!), fancy swipe-cards for keys, and very, very pleasant dreams. As for the café, a special mention in the Lonely Planet describing bright, quirky dog-prints painted all over the walls, and chunky all-day breakfasts drew us there like moths to a flame. Two fat breakfasts on, one of gloriously obese blueberry pancakes, and the other of the traditional sausage, eggs and toast deal, we moved on, along our separate ways. My well-fed tummy now reinforced, I turned south and hopped onto a plane headed to Queenstown, where the rest of the magic was set to unfold.