Drove the 200 or so kilometers to Rororua today, with one extended stop in Hamilton. Roads were good all the way, so it was only about 3 hours of driving time. Our stop in Hamilton was at the museum and we spent all our time in the history section, learning about the Maori history of the city and European takeover. Outstanding were the antique Maori canoe,beautifully carved and decorated with shell and feathers, and a fantastic exhibition of the sculptures of a contemporary Maori carver.
We drove through the small town of Tirau that had a visitors' center that made us stop to take a photo. It was in two sections, one shaped like a sheep and one shaped like a dog. Wonderful - made me laugh!
We're staying at a really nice campground that's right on Waiteti Stream (one of the country's premier trout streams, according to their ad) and a very short walk to Lake Rotorua. The stream is literally 15 feet from our van, so one of us is ecstatic. We can see the trout.
Before the evening fishing, we took a walk to Hamurana Springs. There's a path through a redwood grove (not native - planted in the early 1900's), along a crystal clear river. The spring produces a million gallons of water per hour (!) that flows into Lake Rotorua, which is in a volcanic crater. A short way down the river is an area called Dancing Sands, where a couple of dozen small springs make the sand bubble and swirl. The place was lovely.
Fishing report: Randy caught and released one rainbow trout and had two more on. Out of about 10 fisherman lined up at the mouth of the stream, only one other person caught anything, even though there were really big fish jumping all over the place.
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