It's been a while since my lost post. The holidays took a lot of time from me and I've been busy stressing over the Seahawks in the playoffs :P.
So I've just finished a webinar with Regina and co but I wasn't able to join in due to it being so in the flat so I had to do what I could to join in with a very slow and glitchy laptop. The webinar has put me in the blog mood, and seems as I'm not in work until 11am tomorrow I have some time before I go to bed.
So during my time in New Zealand I stayed for a week in Rotorua. For all of you that have been to New Zealand or more specifically been to Rotorua in New Zealand, you will know that this town is heavily influanced by geothermal activity. This means there's a lot of Sulphur in the air, which means it gives out a rotten egg smell.
You think you get use to if after a while but it keeps coming back every so often, I'd have to speak to someone that's been there for years to ask if it's something they don't notice anymore.
So on one of the days we were there. My travelling friend and I decided to rent out a couple of mountain bikes and head over to the trails a few miles out, the smell of egg hitting us everytime the wind picked up.
Now these were very basic mountain bikes, so basic that on the way to the trails, Kristian's bike pretty much fell apart when he hopped off the pavement. Pretty lucky to be honest, if that would have held on for a little bit longer it might have come apart halfway down a trail.
So he turns back to get another bike and I wait at the entrance of the park. Soaking in all that eggyness.
After 30 minutes to an hour he appears, and we are on our way.
The built up area, with wide roads and concrete construction blocks scattered everywhere slowly turns into a single lane track with walls of pine trees on either side. We see a litte side road so we take it thinking it was the start of the trails, we were wrong but holy balls we were glad we took the side road. There was a little viewing point. The photo in the header is what we saw. We just had to sit there for while to take it all in.
We approach a gate and are left with a steep climb, we get onto it, we cycle up for a good 20 minutes. "This better be worth it" we both exhale out.
We reached the top and there was a few trails on either side and a dirt road taking you to the centre ot the park.
So I tell Kristian to go ahead on one of the trails and I'd follow, I would say I said that because I'm nice but really it's cause I'm a pussy and I'd only slow Kris down haha.
As I speed down the trail a good 5-10 meters behind Kris, the trees become narrower and the turns become even narrower. Kris leaps over a few ramps built in the path, I take the dirt ramps worn into the sides from other bikers with the same level of courage as I have....not much.
We keep making our way through the trail, cycling upwards again, this is where I shined, as uphill is what I'm used to. We reach another point where the trail dips and we ride down. Moments later with the smell of pine and dirt fast filling our senses, the sun coming through more gaps in the trees as the forest thins out and we make it out of the first trail. The sun shining and although where we stood had been deforested, the impact of man definately there but only a blip compared to the vastness of the forest. The ture beauty of New Zealand could be seen in the distance.
We cycle on, trying every track we could find. We stayed there for a good 4-5 hours. We would have stayed longer but seems as we were delayed at the beginning by fragile bikes we lost a bit of time, we probably lost even more time by stopping and taking advantage over things we don't see every day;
There's me, sitting on a tree, loving life, thinking damn I hope a person doesn't come zooming down and takes my legs with him.
There's Kristian...being Kristian :).
We soon head off, the smell of pine slowly turning back to that egg that we loved so much.
My memories of Rotorua is always clouded until I proper think of our time there. There isn't much going on in the town itself, but we were there early spring, so it could have easily been off season but when I really think about it, it's the single town in New Zealand that I did the most.
We went biking by renting bikes from our Hostel (which has sadly closed down since)
We went indoor climbing inside our Hostel.
We had a bit of a walk around the lake, although I wasn't too sure about swmming in it due to the high sulphur content.
We went to a facility that had hot pools and experienced pools that were good for the skin as well as pools that were good for the joints.
We went river sledging, now if you don't know what this is, you have to look it up, it's hella fun, sneak peak photo below for that sotry for another time.
So my message this time is don't put down a place that you haven't really visited, it's easy enough to say that you went somewhere and said it sucked, I've even done it myself, but my memories of Rotorua was a great one, egg smell and all.
There's Kris loving life and getting wet with exitment.
Check out my Instagram for more photos guys.