We walked around the downtown Rotorua area to explore a bit. It would have been nice to check out the Rotorua Museum (located in a historic former hot springs bath house) but the interior was closed to tourists due to the building being "earthquake-prone". We were able to enjoy views of it from the nearby bocce/boules lawn.
There is a lot of evidence of Maori culture around Rotorua, and there are several Maori village attractions where visitors can go to learn more about the indigenous people of New Zealand.
Polynesians came to New Zealand in the 1300's and had lived off the land and sea here for hundreds of years before European settlers arrived in the late 1700's. To learn more, we visited the Tamaki Maori Village. The visit included several interactive lessons in Maori culture - their daily life, crafts, games, warrior culture, and music. It ended with a fabulous buffet-style meal of traditional foods.
The next day we rented a car in Rotorua and drove ourselves out to the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. The experience takes you on a boat through a cave system where the bioluminescent larvae of the New Zealand Glowworm attach themselves to the cave ceiling to feed on insects.
We weren't able to take photos inside the cave but we did splurge on the "deluxe photo package". I can assure you the interior of the cave looked *exactly* like this.
We didn't linger too long in Waitomo because we had an appointment to keep in Hobbiton. Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy (and The Hobbit trilogy) of movies was filmed in New Zealand and one of the more popular attractions on the North Island is the Hobbiton Movie Set.
It is in an idyllic location and immerses you right into the movies. The walking tour took us past plenty of Hobbit-holes and presented many photo opportunities.
Seriously. We have hundreds of pictures like this, of us just geeking out with the adorable Hobbit houses. Okay, last one, I promise!
In the evening, we went back to Rotorua to explore the Redwoods Treewalk at night. Just outside town there are 15 acres of California Redwood trees that were planted in the early 1900's.
Today they are a tourist attraction, with hiking trails through the forest and a 60ft-high suspended walkway that is lit up at night by enormous artistic lanterns hanging from the giant trees. Night photos don't quite capture the scale or eerie beauty of the lanterns.
On our final leg through the North Island we drove ourselves to the Coromandel Penninsula, stopping at the Karangahake Gorge along the way.
The Window Walk path leads past and through former gold mining tunnels and along the former Crown Tramway.
We spent the last evening of our New Zealand trip in the beachy coastal town of Hahei. We took a rather grueling hike up and down beachside cliffs to get to Cathedral Cove.
The walk to the cove was hard enough, but hiking back (uphill both ways!) really took it out of us! We celebrated our accomplishment and the end of a wonderful trip with dinner and a round of drinks at the Pourhouse. We managed to see quite a bit of New Zealand on this trip but there is still a lot to explore so hopefully we make it back here someday!
