On Loving the Cosmos: Rotorua

Stop one on my unexpected journey was a little place in the North Island that’s been causing quite a stink for a couple hundred years.

Rotorua is filled to the brim with all sorts of interesting geothermal activity—geysers, sulfur deposits, mudpools, boiling ponds.

Most tourism reviews of it warn of the pervasive smell of rotten eggs—but I actually wasn’t bothered by it at all, and talking to some other people, they hardly noticed it, too.

I had a brief 24 hours in the area. Enough time to drink in the fascinating geothermal activity going on in the area. With only a few hours before dark, I set out on my first day on a nice walk around the town, the nearby geothermal park, and the lakeside (yes, ever the Minnesotan, I always enjoy a good lakeside stroll).

The next day, I spent most of the morning at a cool little place called Whakarewarewa: The Living Village. It's a living Maori village set precariously atop a lot of geothermal activity. Scattered thickly throughout the area are boiling hot springs, bubbling pits of mud, and geysers that shoot hot water up to 30 meters into the air.

It's a cool little place to learn about Maori culture intertwined with the crazy geological makeup of the area.