Blue Mountains

Turkish steam sauna. Hot, sweaty, steamy, humid and a faint smell of eucalyptus in the air. That's what it felt like the first time we stepped out of the car in the Blue Mountains National Park. At least wet due to the drizzle and surrounded by a lovely smell of fresh eucalyptus. But we were rewarded by breathtaking views over the valley of rolling hills of eucalyptus trees and steep rock faces. When looking at the vertical cliffs there was no doubt why it took the early settlers years to cross over the mountains to colonize the plains on the other side! It was just a shame that some of the lookouts provided a nice view of the surrounding cloud, and not much else. So we missed the Three Sisters.

However, we did spot two new species of parrots flying around. The first one had a bright red body and head and violet/purple wings. The other was greyish with a bright pink chest (galah).

Blue Mountains

Some spectacular views over the eucalyptus-lined valleys of the Blue Mountains

More animals (and dancing!)

Today it was raining. So we spent most of the days inside at the Sydney Aquarium and Wildlife Center. The aquarium had a couple of interesting spaces in which you walked into a tube with water surrounding you on 3 sides. So basically you had various species and sizes of shark and stinger ray just floating above you giving a wonderful view of their 4 rows of teeth (sharks) and faces on their belly (rays). From that angle it seems like the rays were constantly smiling (despite being in the same tank as the sharks?!). From another angle, but looking down into the pool from above, it looked like they were flying, with their side 'fins' acting as 'wings'.

We also saw the duck-billed platypus, another animal unique to Australia. What a bizarre invention of nature! No wonder people originally thought that the platypus was a hoax. It has a duck's beak, an otters tail, fishes webbed 'feet'. Its such a strange combination of mammal and reptile: it can regulate its own body temperature (like mammals) but lays eggs (like reptiles). Weird!

Another completely unexpected animal we saw today was the dugong. In case you're wondering what that is, its also known as a sea cow. If that doesn't help, think of a cross between a seal, sea lion and a whale and then add a flat large nose like a pig. Apparently this thing eats 120 kg of lettuce a day! How does it get so big on just lettuce?

and then there was a giant aquarium, imitating the Great Barrier Reef, which was completely hypnotizing. Me & Harri just sat there for 20 minutes just watching the fish. The conversation went like this: "oooh look at that blue fish. Hey, there goes another yellow fish. And over there on the left is a black & white fish. And there are two pink fish chasing each other." Not a particularly riveting conversation, but give us a break - we are on holiday after all!

(ps we also saw the worlds most venomous snake and most dangerous spider. Behind a glass. Phew!)

I also dragged poor Harri to a ceroc event. Ceroc is a style of dancing related to rock'n'roll which I used to dance in the UK, doesn't exist in the Netherlands, but luckily for me is also really popular in Australia. I found a venue with beginners and intermediate classes, and plenty of freestyling (where everyone dances with everyone). It was FANTASTIC! Especially when I had 3 consecutive dances with the teacher. FABULOUS! I even got compliments for the fact that I was dancing in flip flops rather than proper dance shoes (they didn't fit in my suitcase...)

More animals

Duck-billed platypus

(in the middle of the picture, under the tree roots)

Dugong (aka sea cow)

Ray

Do these guys even need a label?

Rocks & Bridge

Beach, rocks & bridge

Now we are going through the Sydney sight-seeing tour tick list: Opera House - tick. Bondi beach - tick. Sydney Harbour bridge - tick. Today we started off at Bondi beach. If this sparks images of tanned, muscular boys and slim girls relaxing in the hot sun and surfing, you are completely right. But what impressed me the most was not the tanned surfers, the white sand beach or the general chilled out feeling, it was actually the rock formations. We walked from Bondi beach to Bronte beach along a beach walk/promenade. On one side there were fantastic views over the ocean, beach and surfers. On the other perfect examples of what erosion can do to sandstone, with obvious differences between stone eaten away by waves (smooth surface) and that affected by the spray (holes). I was also impressed at the distinct lack of sign-posting, consistent or up-to-date information regarding public transport and the way in which the tourist information sent us on a wild-goose chase (to upstairs when actually the bus stop platform that we needed was 50m behind us). Maybe I'm just spoilt (with clear sign-posting in other countries) and too practical (where going around in circles is not my idea of fun on holiday). Lucky we weren't in a hurry. By the way, its the first time I have seen surf-boards walking around the metro and standing in the bus...

Next stop was the Rocks area. This is one of the oldest sections of Sydney city, site of the original settlers (convicts etc). It did actually contain some old buildings, a strange sight among the skyscrapers of the central business area. We stopped over for coffee/snack and were disturbed by the silence: we could not hear the traffic at all behind the thick walls of what used to be a hospital.

and then the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Up until now we've only seen it from a distance, featuring in our holiday snaps. Now we've not only walked around the great 'feet' of supporting pylons (because we got slightly lost trying to find the entrance) and seen it from the balcony of our hosts, we've also walked on it to get across. Quite an impressive metal structure with nice views across the Opera House/harbour area too.

28 March; Sydney at first glance

Today we went into Sydney for the first time. We took the train, then walked to the Botanical Gardens, stopped over for coffee, and then enjoyed a harbour cruise in a ferry. There are a couple of things that caught my attention. First of all that the business district reminded me a bit of Manhattan, but perhaps with slightly wider gaps between buildings. Of course walking around on a Sunday gives you a completely different perspective than during the weekdays.

The second observation were the bats in the Botanical Gardens - they were everywhere! Every single branch of every single tree seems to be full of bats. In fact some lower-hanging branches had been covered in spikes to prevent them from roosting too close to humans. And they weren't peacefully hanging about sleeping away waiting for nightfall. Not at all. They were rather catching up on the days/weeks/years gossip. All chattering, screeching, squealing, squawking at the same time. Just lucky that there weren't any residential areas as I don't think the bats would make particularly sociable neighbours!

The third thing that I was quite impressed about was the fact that entry to the Botanical Gardens was free. This is a relatively large and well-cared for area of green very close to the famous Opera House, so probably quite high real estate value. Nevertheless, you could wander about on a lazy sunny Sunday afternoon and have a picnic on the grass watching the ships go by in the harbour and the tourists go by on their way to the Opera House. Lovely and relaxing. If people (tourist) watching is your favourite sport then I think the Harbour Quay would probably be at least one good place to partake in this activity. During our short walk I was very interested to note that the spread of nationalities, skin tones, cultures and attire was even more diverse than in Amsterdam, perhaps on a similar scale as in London or New York. Maybe that's one of the things what people find so attractive about Sydney? That and I guess the lovely (year-round?) warm climate.

and then of course the Opera House. I don't know this for a fact, but I would suspect its one of the worlds most photographed opera halls and one of the few opera halls that is more recognized for its architecture than which operas are currently playing within it. From the front & side angles it reminded me of a giant broken dinosaur egg, with bits of shell sticking out at weird angles. From the back it looked like a gladiator mask (or these days a motorcross helmet would probably be closer), with a wide bit to cover the "mouth" area and a pointy triangular bit in the top centre. and what a location too! I haven't actually read up on any historical facts about the Opera House, but the first question I would ask is why it was built where it was. But facts and questions aside I thought it was spectacular and beautiful, and can appreciate how its become the landmark of Sydney.

Overall a lovely way to spend my 30th birthday.

In addition to impressing us adults, our walk through the park, train and ferry ride also kept Aslak entertained. Aslak is our host Paivi & Evan's 3-year old son. He was particularly funny when acting as doorman (bouncer?) in the Botanical Gardens cafe. Much to the delight of everyone, he was keen on opening the door whenever anyone was planning on coming into or out of the cafe. Future career...? :-)

Opera House & Gardens

the wedding

Beautiful setting, with sea view

Our glamorous hosts in Sydney

Congratulations to the happy couple!

25 March; Trains, ducks and skyrail

Up until yesterday, we had experienced the rainforest by car (driving past it/through it), by foot (various walks) and in quadbikes. Yesterday we added another 3 modes of transport to our list: trains, an army duck and skyrail.

We started the day by climbing up a mountain in a train; The Kuranda Scenic Railway. This train was apparently quite an engineering feat when it was built in 1891 as the workers had to chop away at the rainforest and then at the mountain side to make the tracks, and then blast their way through the mountains using dynamite to create 15 tunnels. It was originally built shortly after they found gold (and tin) in the surrounding area. Nowadays its a gold mine in itself considering the number of tourists...We travelled in style in the Gold Class compartment. This exclusive section of the train afforded even more leg room, better views, complimentary drinks (which Harri took advantage of), yummy nibbly snacks and our own personal tour guide who would tell us exactly where to sit and when to take the best photos. Now that's what I call service :-) On the way we also stopped over for some impressive views of a waterfall, which was later used to support a local hydroelectric power station.

Next up were the army ducks, 6-wheel drive vehicles constructed during the second World War designed to travel on land and in water. We went down pretty narrow and steep tracks and the guide was very good a pointing out all sorts of interesting plants. For example there is this one plant with tasty black berries which stain your teeth black for the next 3 days (apparently quite a funny practical joke...) and another one which has silica-like substance on its leaves which sticks to your skin and inserts a neurotoxin which can last up to 6 months (evil!).

Then the skyrail. This is the longest cable car in...can't remember whether it was Queenstown, North Australia or world (does it matter?). But anyway it took us down from Kuranda back to Cairns level over the rainforest in about 45 min. So basically we were looking down at the rainforest canopy, flying just over it. Enough to get a good feeling for how high the trees were, but very hard to capture on the camera (especially through the water droplets which clouded the cable car cabin windows). The journey also included a couple of stops where we could have another walk around within the rainforest (with mosquitos waiting just outside the cable cars for unsuspecting tourists....). On a good day the views from the skyrail would have been fantastic: over the rainforest, the valleys and right into the ocean. Unfortunately it wasn't a good day and so we descended into lots of cloud. At some point all we could see around us was the cable supporting the cabin and nothing else - felt like we were floating in mid-air. Creepy.

Our organized tour not only included all these modes of transport in/over the rainforest, but also an introduction to aboriginal culture. We watched a show of traditional dancing (including hilarious audience participation!), listened to a didgeridoo being played, saw a demonstration of the use of a spear-thrower (impressive extension of range) and even tried throwing a boomerang (very unsuccessfully in my case). All very interesting.

Highlights of Cairns:
- Living a life of luxury
- Great Barrier Reef for colourful underwater display of corals and fish
- Meeting and feeding roos - I didn't realize how interesting and full of character they were
- Experiencing one of the worlds oldest rainforest (in various ways, from various angles)
- Mudcrab dinner

Its just a shame that its the rainy season here and therefore we didn't get as many sunny days as I expected. However, the rain didn't stop us from doing much. As its also warm, its not too bad if you get wet because you get dry pretty quick and you don't get cold. What a difference compared with other countries (where wet=cold)!

Seems strange finishing up writing this while sitting on the terrace admiring the view over Sydney Harbour. Looking forward to the wedding tomorrow.

we have arrived (in Sydney)

special dinner

Before...

(one mudcrab happily swimming away in a tank. Alive)

The surgeons tools

Beautifully assembled onto the serving dish

Yummy!

You will get more information on all the stuff we saw & did tomorrow. Too tired.

Birds and koalas

Today we visited the Port Douglas Rainforest Habitat in which we saw plenty of different types of native birds, koalas, wallabies, kangaroos and crocodiles. I was quite impressed at the constant shrieking within the enclosures, the large storks, the tree kangaroo mum & baby, the emu walking around the grounds, the huge pelicans and how the wallabies were quite happy to come up quite close and feed out of our hands. Harri really liked the moluccan black parrots, the colourful lori parakeets and was busy gathering plenty of material for his next greenhouse project. They also had a koala and reptile handling, so I got my photo taken while holding a koala (felt slightly commercial, but an experience nonetheless).

We spent the rest of the afternoon with our new friend Virginia relaxing in at a beachside cafe in Port Douglas, enjoying a lovely lunch of fresh local prawns and "bugs" (the local crab/shrimp). Port Douglas seemed like a contradiction. On the one hand it was definitely smaller and more exclusive than Cairns (judging by the holiday resorts and exclusive brand clothing stores), but it also had a more relaxed vibe about it.

On the way back we got a nice eyeful of the native bats hanging on a tree. We have seen these fly across our hotel every evening at exactly 6:15pm, migrating from their daytime sleeping posts to their night-time feeding locations, the neighbouring fruit farms/trees. Very impressive to see and hear a huge flock of big bats fly over your head - what a racket!

other animals of Port Douglas

birds of Port Douglas

Daintree rainforest and roos!

Ok brace yourselves for here comes a long blog for today.

We went for a day trip to the Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation area north of Cairns. The Daintree Rainforest is estimated as being one of the oldest in the world at a meagre 120 million years of age (because it has one of the first species of flowering plant). It has 1500 different species of trees, plus another couple thousand different species of plant. It is also one of the few places where giant-leaved king ferns grow, with leaf spans of up to 6m in length! All even more impressive than the rainforest that I was raving on about in New Zealand.

We went for a short (30 minute) walk in this rainforest to marvel at the wonderful display of trees, plants, epiphytes and ferns. What was obvious to me was all the various techniques the plants had adapted to gain access to their source of life: light. Some developed huge leaves like the ferns and umbrella palm. Others climbing techniques to get higher such as twisting around the trunk of another tree like a corkscrew, or developing spikes to enable easier attachment to other trees and therefore climb even higher. I stopped for a second just to register the environment with all my senses. I could see the greenery around me, I could smell the rotting vegetation, I could hear the occasional bird chirping, I could feel the rain and I could have, if I'd wanted to, tasted the nature too...

However, it wasn't very wise to stop for very long as apparently it was "biting season" as aptly demonstrated by the onslaught of mosquitos. They were even worse than the New Zealand sandflies (if that's even possible). Also native to this rainforest were massive spiders, at least the biggest spiders I've ever seen in the wild. They were, I'm not exaggerating, 15cm in diameter and particularly keen on surprising people on the way to the toilets (their favourite web-hanging place). Another thing we learn today was that if you were stuck in the rainforest and under danger of suffering from scurvy due to lack of Vitamin C in your diet, all you need to do is suck on the ass of green ants. Charming. Actually, come to think of it, if you were stuck in the middle of the rainforest, your daily supply of Vitamin C may not be very high on your priority list.... Apparently the green ants secrete Vitamin C as a defense mechanism and it tastes like lemon sherbert. Yummy?

Next let me talk about our wildlife spotting for today. We saw wallabies hanging out on a grassy field outside of Cairns. They are forced to hang out in some "pretty weird places" (to quote our guide) due to the deforestation of their natural habitat. So next time you're in Cairns and you see a wallaby in a pub....We also saw a cassowary. This is a big flightless bird that's related to the emu, but has really bright blue neck and head. Very beautiful and very exciting to spot one in the wild. It was headed towards the local ice-cream parlour (more on that later), so may be affected by the same forces as the wallaby...? And then, the piece de resistance: kangaroos! My new favourite animal. We saw 2 different species of kangaroo and 3 of wallaby within an enclosure - and got to feed them bits of carrot, bread and squashed banana. I could not believe I had a kangaroo eating out of my hand and letting me pet its back. Amazing!

In case that wasn't enough, we also tried some exotic fruit and fruit ice cream. In terms of fruit there was pineapple, sugar banana (smaller, sweeter and thicker consistency that your usual), custard apple (aka chirimoya), its relative the rose water custard apple (looked like a cross between an apple and a bunch of grapes), rambutan (Harri: alien egg) and finally something that I can't remember the name of which was red and fleshy (think avocado consistency). This fruit tasted better when made into ice cream. We also tried sugar banana, mango and wattle-seed ice cream (which tasted strangely like hazelnut). Certainly a better source of vitamins that licking an ants backside!

I will leave you with the best road sign of the year award.

Wild encounters

Great Barrier Reef

What can I say that hasn't been said in thousands of tourist brochures. The Great Barrier Reef certainly deserves to be in the list of Wonders of the World. It was a fantastic display of marine life. It felt like we were swimming straight in a National Geographic documentary; the only thing which was missing was the voice of David Attenborough narrating in the background. For Harri it was like swimming in a giant aquarium

Lets start with the coral, sponges and anemones. They were brown, grey, red, yellow, orange, blue, white and turquoise. They were spiky, wavy, moundy (new adjective ie shaped like mounds?), round, tube-like, fan-like, brain line, antler like etc. Just think of shape and it was there. No doubt Harri will be able to provide more exact details. My personal favourite was bright iridescent light blue antler (how did nature come up with such a colour?).

Then there were the giant clams. Huge! With "mouths" over 1m in diameter! But also very beautiful dark turquoise/dark blue wavy pattern on the "lips" of the mouth (look it up if you're confused about my terminology).

Last, but certainly not least, the fish. Again all the colours under the sun, sometimes on a single fish. It was quite overwhelming, so I tried to develop a system to remember some of my favourites. Just to give you a couple of examples, there was the "zebra" fish (black & white stripes, obviously), the "leopard" fish (yellow with black spots, or was it black with yellow spots?), the "lemon" fish (looked a bit like a lemon, bright yellow with or without some small black spots) and the "80's" fish which had fuschia pink and lime green stripes on its head (somebody has a sense of humour...). Of course these are not their official names! There was also a colony of "nemos" (official name: clownfish) and at least 3 different types of parrotfish (green, red and pinky/silver) and little cute shiny blue ones and many variations of the butterfly fish (this is actually its official name, so in light of that my variations are actually not that absurd). I also saw a small red starfish, which apparently are quite difficult to spot. Then there were small sepias which could change colour and different types of jellyfish, which the instructors threw at each other (think food fight, but with jellyfish instead...).

Overall, a marvelous experience which is very hard to describe in words - so I guess you have to come and visit yourselves to fully appreciate its beauty!

Introducing Cairns

5:30am alarm clock. Auch! Don't you know we are supposed to be on holiday! A couple of in-flight movies later we arrived in Cairns, Australia, but not before catching a glimpse of the Great Barrier Reef from the airplane window. A great big turqouise fried egg in the middle of an emerald green sea and sparkling white sandy beaches. Can't wait for our snorkeling trip there tomorrow! Watch this space for what will likely be an explosion of colour, wildlife and coral. More on that hopefully in tomorrow's blog.

In the meantime, we have stocked up on sun lotion, cheap beach towels and new swimwear (for Harri) and a very useful (not) black & white long dress for me. We had a peaceful walk down the Esplanade, admired the bunch of people swimming in the (man-made, inland) lagoon and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon at the hotel bar, working our way through the drinks (beer) menu. Finished up with a beautiful steak, best so far.

By the way, thanks to Harri's Hilton/Amex points we are enjoying all sorts of luxuries in this hotel - we have a room with a view overlooking some water & boats, could see extremely colorful lori parakeets from our balcony (very colorful) and enjoyed a glass of complimentary wine & snacks in the sunset. What a life!

Good life!

Motocross and finale to New Zealand

I decided to finish off our NZ adventure with a bang and booked an 1,5 hour motocross tour. So fresh from breakfast and full of energy I arrived to the bike depot and realized I was the only one doing the trip on that morning. Cool, a private tour! So I collected and assembled the gear, and met my guide out on the paddock for a test drive. The aim was to get to know the bike and for him to check out my skill level so he can decide the route. I did tell him that I'd done a bit of off-roading in Finland about 15 years ago; I'm guessing that that's what he made his assessment on as when I started on the practice rounds he went to gear up (without watching my preliminary performance). When I'd done my first round he came back and said lets go!

We started quite fast across the farm lands and went up and down on the grassy hills. Great fun! Dodged some sheep, cows and hobbits: quite a good warm up on your muscles. On terrain like we were on you don't actually sit on the motocross bike, but you stand and use your legs as suspension. Sweaty business with carcass like mine...

Some of the hills are quite steep, resulting in this flying finn having a heart attack and shouting s**t on the way down. Those aerial acrobatics were not quite intended and its a miracle I came down upright, but now afterwards are fun to think about. Reward for all this climbing on the hill sides was an amazing view over the lake Rotorua and it was clear enough to see all the way to the sea.

After some catching up on some breathing and admiring the scenery, he told me that I'd done pretty good and said we will go to the more demanding forest & bush tracks. Similar scenery as yesterday on the quad trip but this time I didn't have as much time to admire it as I had full time job trying to make sure I didn't drive to a tree-fern or do more unintended aerial acrobatics (eg when the bike stops in a half a meter pot hole and I continue on...). But overall I had a great time! Guess the biking experience so far paid off as my guide also decided to go and investigate some new routes he had not seen before. More amazing scenery and tracks!

Unfortunately the fun had to stop at some point. Guessing it was also good as I started to be pretty much drained. Can't remember the last time I had such a workout! Hope I will be able to climb to the plane tomorrow to head to Australia...

While Harri was getting his final adrenaline rush, I had a quiet day with plenty of time to reflect back on our stay in NZ. Of course I wish we would have had more time here, particularly to explore more of the country by foot, but overall I think we managed to cram in quite a lot of mileage, scenery and experiences, considering our relatively short stay. My highlights in some sort of categories:

Flora & Fauna
Best wildlife experience: close encounter with seals near the Tonga Island, Abel Tasman National Park
Best forest moment: Quadbiking through the rainforest
Most magical colours: 600 different shades of green in the scenery on the South Island (Christchurch to Queenstown)
and of course meeting a native Kiwi (bird that is)

Adrenaline
Most awesome: Helicopter ride over Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers
Most fun: Motorbike ride!

Food & Drink
Best garlic bread: The Gothic Restaurant in Motueka
Best lamb: Lamb salad with kiwi dressing at Macs, Rotorua
Best wine selection: wine tasting at Neudorf, near Motueka

Negative
Most annoying: Sandflies
sore muscles....

Overall we both feel like its the end of an era - ready for the next phase of our adventure.

Motocross accross middle earth in Rotorua

Volcanoes, kiwis and quads

Not quite volcanoes, but almost. We went to the Wai-O-Tapu reserve and saw an erupting geyser (more on that later) and plenty of evidence that we were walking around an area which has been, and to some extent still was, active. But first about the geyser. When we read the guide book we were impressed that the geyser erupted exactly at 10:15am every day. I mean how did the geyser know what time it was? But it was a trick. Apparently the geyser would have erupted at 24-72 hour intervals naturally. But of course that's not regular enough to draw the tourists. So what they did was induce the eruption using soap (a surfactant). What the soap did was break the surface tension in the chamber of cooler (+90c) water which lay on top of a chamber of warmer water (+150c). Once the surface tension was broken, there was pressure created by the temperature difference - resulting in the eruption. Cheating. But impressive gushing of water up to 10m high anyway.

The rest of the park was more natural. As natural as pink, purple, emerald green, turquoise blue, light & sulfur yellow and bright orange sediments can be. By far the most impressive was the Champagne Lake where the bright orange layer of sediment was contrasted nicely against the white lake edge and emerald green bubbling lake. Beautiful! And then there was this one crater lake which was LIME green. Seriously - like someone squirted the ink from a fluorescent yellow pen into some pea soup (and no, I'm not taking any hallucinogenic agents, in case you were wondering). Certainly a weird experience, special to this area of New Zealand.

And special to New Zealand in general was our encounter with some kiwis. Finally, we got to meet the birds that the country is known for, that the people have been named after. We went to the Rainbow Springs Nature Park which also had a Kiwi Conservation Project. Although there are 20,000 North Island variation of kiwis, their numbers are rapidly declining due to the introduced predators, such as the possum (in particular), rats, cats and dogs (amongst others). Therefore this particular place hatches kiwi eggs collected from the wild and then releases them back into the nature once they are ready (into the area which they originated from, provided there are predator traps every 50m). We got to see the incubating eggs, a 1-day old trying to find its way out of the incubator and the "nursery" where they were weighed every day and fed a mixture of ox heart, fruit and vegetables (delicious & nutritious). But the best bit was seeing them live in open pens, just 1m away. In case you don't know what a Kiwi (bird) looks like, think of a chicken, then make it a bit bigger, then add some really fluffy soft brown feathers (almost down-like), then give it a really long beak, a relatively high backside and remove wings. If you went up in size past ostrich then you went too far. Well, that would be a moa, as tasty, but to see that you need a time machine. Right, look it up on Wikipedia to avoid disturbing nightmares. I don't think our trip to New Zealand would have been complete without seeing one, even if it was in a relatively sterile environment. And if you didn't notice it yet we did have a very nice dinner, with some very nice wine...

And next up was some action - quadbiking! We crossed farm land that that looked like it was pulled out from the Hobbiton (with cows and sheep), went up and down the green rolling hills, up dirt tracks, down dirt tracks, through a real proper dense dark rainforest full of tree ferns. Fantastic fun! (Apart from when I almost crashed into a tree). By the end we were completely covered in dust (from head to foot) but so exhilarated (and sore).

Harri's going for a comparison ride with a dirt-bike tomorrow morning. I might just soak my sore muscles in the hotel thermal pool.

ps. as a comparison to the possum point earlier. In OZ there are about 200 possums per hectare. In NZ, thanks Ozzies, there are about 1000 possums per ACRE.

Wai-O-Tapu photos