Rotorua is near the center of the North Island, and is a hotbed of geothermic activity. The whole place smells like rotten eggs from the perpetually bubbling mud and geysers. This type of activity shows itself down to the south end of Taupo.
Rotorua the town was nice enough. Some people call it Roto-Vegas because there is a lot of neon, but I hear there is no night life. Go figure. The lake was cool though. In the end though, we didn't stay too much longer than a snack and some rather quick lake time.
Instead we went out to Lake Tarawera, where we hung out for the afternoon and camped. As you can see below it went from low clouds and blowy to sunny and blowy.
We even had an interesting sunset.
The next morning the wind had died, so we had nice flat water, and could even see the massive crater that had been looming over us overnight.
Before leaving, we stopped at Tarawera Falls, which is the product of an underground river exiting the rock. It was really quite impressive, but perhaps more so is the fact that there are freshwater eels there that can climb it. Well played.
Lake Karapiro may have been the real hidden gem. Just south of Cambridge, which is just south of Hamilton (so sort of in the middle of nowhere) was this lovely lake. Perhaps it was because the light was just right on a lovely autumn day, but we were really jealous of the folks in the campervan who clearly weren't going anywhere (what, with their wine and all). I don't recall wanting to clear out.
