Muddy Waters with a whiff of Sulphur

Today we were up early to a glorious morning. A delightful breakfast on the terrace, fresh fruit, omelettes and lots of toast.. Then on the road to Rotorua and the first lesson - NZ signposting is incredibly vague. So we spent 30 minutes touring the town of Tauranga as Marion struggled with the map. For once I sympathised.
As the guidebooks say, you smell Rotorua before you arrive there - it is pungent sulphur. A good side effect is that it seems to clear the sinuses. The town seemed quiet, high season has obviously been and gone. Our room is pleasant typical modern hotel example, overlooking the lake on which the town is set. Think French spa town.
So off to Hells Gate, named by George Bernard Shaw who said that as a well known atheist it resembled the gates of hell that his friends said he would end up in. The volcanic park was fascinating, lots of bubbling naturally heated pools, some well above boiling point because of the mineral content of the water. You had to pinch yourself to realise the miracle of what you were seeing. I guess Laura might have seen similar in Iceland. Well after a stroll it was off to the spa. There we had a lecture on what it would do to our clothes, how to wash them and not to wear silver jewellery afterwards. Well, I am starting a mud bath in Scarborough, basically you sit in a concrete tub which has mud at the bottom which you rub all over you. Marion’s face looked like Francis Drake on a bad hair day. It felt good, but you only realised how good afterwards. There are photos - fortunately Marion had the wrong setting when photographing me!!!!!
Then an ice cold shower in which you had to wash all the mud off, not easy I tell you it gets in every crevice. Then into a warm (hot bath) sulphur pool which was very relaxing. Just lie and soak. Then a shower after which you felt great but still smelt awful. Marion was much less stiff afterwards so I will install one in the back garden, just need the volcanic water source!!!

Marion writing now! On return to centre of Rotorua we spent some time in the Government gardens – it had a very colonial “feel” – except that there are sudden examples of boiling, steaming geo-thermal pools around them. The buildings dated from the early 20th century and were rather Spanish in their architecture with lovely lawned gardens, full of impatiens, agapanthus and other, more exotic flora. I’m on a bit of a flora and fauna kick. All the swans in NZ appear to be black. I haven’t seen a white one since we’ve been here. In a minute I am going to have a shower to try to get rid of the last evidence of the mud bath. It’s going to take plenty exotic smelling products to get me acceptable again – I have become used to smelling like rotten eggs and will miss it when it’s gone! However we decided on quite a nice restaurant tonight and, although the smell of sulphur is in the air here, I don’t have to add to it!!