Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

New Zealand Travelog #33
Waiotapu, NZ - Thu, 18 Apr 2024, 11am

This week we're traveling on the North Island of New Zealand. The framework of this leg of the trip is flying into Wellington in the south (we did that this past Monday), driving up to Auckland in the north, and depart for home from Auckland this coming Monday. We filled in plans for activities throughout the week by looking at things to do along the way from one city to the other.

One of the types of things that jumped out at us was geothermal spots,. There are a bunch of them in the region around Rotorua. We visited Te Puia near Rotorua yesterday (detailed blog still pending). Today we've backtracked a bit to the south to see Waiotapu.


Link: watch video on YouTube

One of the standout sights to see in Waiotapu, indeed one of the reasons we picked it, is the daily eruption of Lady Knox Geyser. The video above shows the daily show.

As you might gather from the commentary in the crawler I added, we were not that impressed. Yes, it's a geyser. But the eruption is a put-on show. It's tourist-trappy. And we're kind of allergic to tourist traps. ...Actually, allergic isn't so much the right description as "sneeringly disdainful". You can tell that from the crawler commentary, too. 🤣

Fortunately the rest of Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland is a legit tourist attraction and not a tourist trap. I'll share more video later.

New Zealand Travelog #30
Turangi, NZ - Tue, 16 Apr 2024, 10pm

It was a good, long day today hiking in Tongariro National Park. But not too long; we finished in time to get to our next place for the night before sunset. Though maybe that's more a function of not having to drive a few hundred km than anything else. 😂

Tonight we're at an old-fashioned motor court hotel seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Yes, that was also kind of the description for the Hobbit Motor Lodge last night, but this one's even more old-fashion and even more middle-of-nowhere seeming.



How old-fashioned is it? Well, aside from the 1950s vintage construction (or is it even older?) with a single storey building where you park directly in front of your door— oh, and we're in room 1; there are only, like, 8 rooms here— check out this old-timey key. This thing looks like it comes straight of the 1930s... and likely wasn't even considered modern technology back then.



The furnishings inside are tastefully newer. We're talking at least 1960s style, here. And things work (unlike the Hobbit Motor Lodge) and are clean. Our cozy bedroom is through the door to the right of the sofa. The small bed on the far right of the photo is a spare single. We used it as a bench unpacking and repacking our bags.

And that little table by the window... well, that's where we ate dinner. We drove into town, 7km away, bought food from a couple of take-aways and beer/sodas from the town's one grocery store, and came back to the room to eat. The lights in the room were harsh (damn 1970s style fluorescents) so we ate by the (yellow) light of the porch light outside. How romantic.

Oh, but dinner was after this little number....



This is the reason we booked this little, old-timey, out-of-the-way motor court. Natural hot springs pools. The hotel's small patch of land includes a natural hot springs that is piped into four semi-private bathing pools.

"Are they clothing optional?" I asked the proprietor.

"Well, there's 4 tubs, 3 are open one's closed, and only 3 rooms let for the night, so whether or not they're shared is up to you," he said with a smile. Hawk thought we joking around, but I could math well enough to know the answer was "Yes". (There's actually a math thing called The First Pigeon-Hole Principle that applies here.)

Bug Swatting

Ah, yes. I'm sure this is the part from the journal's entry you were all waiting for. Bug swatting. Not just that but vigorous bug swatting!

Part of this little motor court's old-timey-ness is that it was built apparently in the age before window screens. Or central fans. The proprietor aired it out during the day by leaving a few of the windows and the front door open all day. That mean there were bugs inside. And as we stayed up late this evening catching up on things on our computer, those bugs all started congregating on the walls and ceiling about the one little light on in our bedroom.

I hate bugs. I especially hate bugs next to where I'm sleeping. I started swatting them with my shoe. It was pretty easy as there were so many congregated together. At first I could often get two with one swat. But others would fly off and come back later. For at least 45 minutes I got up every few minutes to pound the walls and ceiling. *Thump*. *Thump* *thump*.

"I'm surprised our next door neighbor hasn't complained," Hawk quipped. Maybe he/she/they were out at the hot spring.

After the first few swats I considered how I wasn't really angry at the bugs— though they were absolutely the targets of my vigor— but at the proprietor who'd left the door open all day to let them in. So I started smearing when I swatted. 🤢 I decided I would leave as many bug-corpses on the wall as possible to show the proprietor the consequences of his action.

I hope he had to spend 15 minutes scrubbing. 😷

I hope he doesn't charge us an extra cleaning fee. 🤣