Rotoura & Coromandel

North Island News:

To help soak out the soreness from our legs from that massive hike, we traveled to Rotoura, a town known for it's extensive thermal pools & vents. Here is a photo of a hill side just steaming out of every crevice. Some smell like sulphur.

They even have public soaking pools in the city park, which is a nice, large park. The photo with the flowers (and you can kind of see some steam in the background) is from the City Park. There are literally thermal vents everywhere, bubbling masses of mud, we couldn't imagine how anyone builds buildings around here- how would get a foundation in? It reminded us of Yellowstone National Park.
We decided to splurge on ourselves & get a hotel room with our own private hot pool in it! Sorry, no photos to share!

Then we went north up to the Coromandel Peninsula. Here we found nice beaches and a little sun, blue waters. The strangest thing we heard about was the "Hot Water Beach" where hordes of people go to dig a hole in the sand right where some thermal spots are, and make your own hot spring right there on the beach! We're heading further north up to the tip of the N. Isl, so keep tuned.