Roto-Vegas! - Part 1

Happy Easter all, hope your holiday is as solemn and/or as chocolatey as you desire.

We've just returned from a few days in Rotorua, aka Roto-vegas, aka stinky town, aka... well I'll just let this ute sum up the place:

Actually, the smell wasn't as bad as my corrupted childhood memories had led me to believe, it's only in the really active (volcanically speaking) parts of town that you notice it.

First off, a big thank you to Jacqui and James for the gift of the entry pass to the Polynesian Spa. We'll get to that part later though.

Obviously the first part of the trip was getting there, and it wasn't long out of home that the smells began. Koba got a case of the nervous shits on the way to the cattery, thus adding to the fragrance of "ex-smoker's car" and vanilla car freshener. Fortunately the mess was contained within his cage, which was left with the cattery staff to take care of, hehe. Having cleared the mad Auckland holiday traffic, we stopped at Huntly for dinner and added Maccas takeaway to the olfactory composition. mmmmm.

@94 on Springfield is a fantastic B&B, and Jo once again proved her capable online research skills to pick a winner.

On Saturday we cruised around a bit seeing what was on offer. The Whakarawera village is a really odd site - basically a Maori village (not very traditional, but the residents do live right in the middle of a tourist park) set amongst a highly geothermally active site - boiling water and mud pools and geysers, etc. I think we were both most taken with a two year old playing on a porch about 10 metres from a deep boiling hole in her own front yard.
Side note - I want a grave with a steaming chimney:

We bypassed some of the other touristy stuff and took the car up Mountain Rd for a scenic look. Part way up this twisty climbing road I felt like John Batman, pondering "this looks like the place for a hill climb" (assuming he had fallen through a space-time warp and parked his ship halfway up a hill in the middle of an island, and suddenly knew what a hill climb was, let alone a car...). Half way up the road is closed off to traffic, so we set off on foot to see more.

Just beyond the gates it's obvious (from the burnout patch) that the upper section of road DOES get used as a hillclimb track! Known as the Ngongotaha hillclimb, it's run a few times a year according to some quick googling.

Beautiful views over Lake Rotorua, but not while competing I guess... also saw some farmed deer and this cute litte hedgehog.
Dinner was at Bistro 1284 in the middle of town - bloody expensive but very nice, it was recommended by the psychiatrist Jo works with. Top choice again.