Where the air is ripe

From hot water beach we headed a little further up the coast to Cathedral Cove to finally be greeted with some beautiful weather showing off the lovely beach and archway to its fullest. There is a short walk down to the cove which the signs say takes about 40 minutes – the Lonely Planet disagrees and says that only those on a ventilator should take that long – in our case thankfully the LP was spot on 🙂

Cathedral Cove is a rock formation that has been formed by the erosion of the sea. I last went there 10 years ago and not a great deal has changed since then apart from a big sign that warns you not to go under the archway for fear of falling rock and a yellow tape that is incredibly easy to hop over. I guess they feel like they’ve done their bit in warning you and if anything happens you can’t sue.

After the obligatory photo shoot we headed on down the coast to Rotorua to check out some steaming mud pools and shooting geysers that draw over 3 million tourists to the area every year. I have to say apart from the weirdly lunar landscape in the Wai-O-Tapu park and the insane natural thermal phenomenons in the area that definitely capture the imagination, none of us were particularly taken with Rotorua. I have no idea why anyone would choose to live in the town – the entire place smells like rotten eggs. And I mean the whole town.