Thermal Venting and Exercising Prawns

So our first stop was in Rotarua, it means something along the lines of two lakes but I have forgotten the guide book to look it up.

It is a really cool place that experiences lots of geothermal activity, (to save grabbing the dictionary, that means steam vents, mineral pools and geysers). Lorna managed to navigate quite well, bar one "scenic" detour (we are stillnot sure who's fault it was as she did give me the option to turn around, but I was sure she could get us back on track quite quickly, not after an hour). To be fair, Chris was exercising the male, 'no, we AREN'T lost' role very well...

We grabbed lunch in sulphurville (very smelly), but we have found why Penny is so lazy. She apparently runs a fine eating establishment when we are not looking (we know that it belongs to Penny, not just by the name, but also the poor portion control).



The Thermal park was cool, there were lots of geyser's and mud pools and all that sort of stuff, but really what can you say about them - they looked wierd, smelt bad, spouted water 20m in the air and were like nothing we have ever seen!! Hey, where else can you go and sit on a rock that is hot enough to fry an egg? (Except Iceland...)






So we stayed in a campsite that was to flies, what Alfred Hitchcock was to Birds (Defiantely not for the fainthearted)

We then made our escape and headed to Lake Taupo, which is the largest volcanic lake in the Southern Hemisphere (or so the guide book says)

On the way we found the Prawn Farm (yes this is not a typo) - who knew such a place actually existed? So naturally, we felt obliged to stop and see what that was all about. It basically does what it says on the tin, it farms prawns and then the visitors eat them - it was a lot of fun and the prawns were tasty!! See for yourselves ...



We were allowed to feed the baby prawns, it was so weird they swam and crawled all over your hand in the water. (Dennis you would have loved it)



So after all that excitement we decided nothing could top it so, here we are, a few hundred kms later in an internet cafe. Chris has finally stopped twitching but I am slowly losing the will to live, so we will go and leave you wanting more (maybe...)