In the center of Rotorua, the very British Government Gardens. |
Another building in the Government Gardens |
The Tudor building houses a museum. |
And being Rotorua, there are of course steaming geothermal pits all over the Gardens! |
The gates to the Gardens. |
Oooh! Real Black Swans! It's Odile (Swan Lake reference)!! Black swans are rare- these are some of the few flocks in the world. |
You will see this sign ALL OVER ROTORUA. They are not kidding, this stuff is hotter than hell. |
We took a walking tour of Rotorua, and found a little Maori village called Ohinemutu. |
Ohinemutu is a regular, lived-in neighborhood. It's also a sacred Maori site and steaming with geothermic activity. |
A Maori shrine at Ohinemutu |
The lovely Tudor-British-Maori Christian church at Ohinemutu! |
Ohinemutu is on Lake Rotorua. It's stunning at sunset. |
The neighborhood homes are both Maori and modern. And, it's steaming. |
The steaming streets of Ohinemutu... |
The water is so hot it creates these fascinating bubbles and patterns in the water... |
Ohinemutu at sunset. |
Maori canoes on Lake Rotorua. |
Another Ohinemutu sunset photo. |
Enjoying one of the very few lovely sunsets on this trip! |
We visited Kuirau Park- it used to be just a wild area, but once a geothermic geyser exploded in 2003, the city turned it into a park. |