Blurb from Matamata, Rotorua and Hobbiton, or thereabouts:

Let's see, when last I blurbed it was from a very wet campground in Waingaro. We stayed another night there, despite the fact that everyone else left when the pools flooded with mud and were subsequently closed. Can't really blame them, that's the main attraction there. We assessed the weather forecast and decided the storm was supposed to wane in the next 6 hours, and that we'd be safe staying another night without risk of being trapped by rising waters in the many nearby streams and rivers. We holed up and hung out, and later when the rain let up we took a misty walk along the road, marveling at height of the stream. We stopped for a beer at the little pub on the hill and had an interesting conversation with the bartender about the local area and it's sheep farming and the logging industry.

And then it was on to Rotorua, the center of geothermal activity in New Zealand. Rotorua boasts that it is located on the "Ring of Fire", a world-wide circular fault line that slices right up through the middle of New Zealand, continues around until it eventually moves through California as our own San Andreas Fault, the up through Alaska, across the northern Pacific to Japan and on down. So that means those of us in Southern California can boast that we also live on "The Ring of Fire!" Something maybe our tourism people should work on. We found the area a bit confusing with all the options available, aimed at the adventurous tourist who has lots of money to spend. For a lot of your tourist dollars you can jump out of airplanes, take balloon or helicopter rides and have pricey Maori massages and spa experiences; for about a hundred Kiwi dollars per person you can roll down a grassy hill in a plastic ball, slide down a cement hill on a luge, ride a fake wave, get a mud facial, attend a Maori cultural show, walk around a contained geothermal park and then sit in a mud bath followed by a soak in a sulfur pool, and ever-so-much more. For a few less you can watch lions being fed raw horse meat, visit the Caterpillar Experience (yellow farm machines, not furry pre-butterflies) or go to a museum. And for absolutely nothing you can walk through the California Redwood Forest or explore a geothermal park.

Being as how and since we're still watching our US and Kiwi dollars, we narrowed our sulfur-based fun and activities to the following: First, the museum, which is largely focused on the history of the building itself -- a bath house and spa built around the turn of the last century to encourage tourism in New Zealand during a time when "taking the cure" was popular all over the world. People with ailments from rheumatism and arthritis to gout and obesity to skin conditions and pretty much anything else were assured relief, enhanced in some cases by the new technology of adding direct electrical current to the bath. I can only imagine that sort of fun. Guided tours through the museum are free, and we were fortunate to be the only two who showed up for the one o'clock tour. Our guide was part Maori, and his wife is full Maori, so while at first he concentrated on the stories behind the bath house and it's medical claims of miracle cures, when we finally got to the areas concerning Maori history and culture, we realized how small this country is: one room was dedicated to the Maori men who served in WWII, and our guide knew a surprising number of them. He'd point to a serviceman's photo on the wall and tell us "I worked for him" or "his daughter was maid of honor at our wedding" or "he was our neighbor." Our one-hour tour lasted over two, and in fact, we had to bring it to an end before the last room because we were starving.

We followed up our visit to the museum with a walk in the California Redwood Forest. You heard me right, and we had the same thoughts: What? We're in New Zealand to see California trees? It seems a hundred or so years ago the burgeoning timber industry was trying to decided what trees grew best in New Zealand for logging, so they planted a whole forest of test trees from around the world, among them, the massive California Redwood. A number of the test trees died, some did well, and from the lot they picked the one they thought would serve their purposes best. It wasn't the Redwood, and I don't know which tree got the role, but it's now planted all over the North Island (maybe South too, we haven't been there yet) being groomed and readied for the axe. The Redwoods thrived, however, and they left them, so now they're over 200 feet high and getting pretty thick around the middles, although nothing like our own Redwood forests in Northern California. The forest is beautiful, and has a peaceful, cool series of paths and bike routes to explore.

The next day was our Expensive Maori Tourist Day. We started with a walk through the thermal park at Hell's Gate, so named by George Bernard Shaw when he deemed the area pretty much like what he'd face if he didn't live up to certain Christian principles. This really is an impressive planet, and little reminders like bubbling cauldrons of boiling mud with luminescent green sulfur deposits and black oozing blobs and spewing boiling geysers is a great reminder of it's power. Following our walk, which by the way was on the warmest day of the week under full sun in mid-day, we had opted to slop around in the mud bath followed by a dip in the hot sulfur pools. We sort of blew the planning there, and found that sliding into the hot mud bath in full sun was a bit meaningless, especially when followed by the big hot water pool in only partial shade. It would have been more fun in the evening, or on a cool day, but we got out feeling maybe a little younger and certainly healed of any prior maladies.

We showered as much of the sulfur off as possible and headed for the cool of the Redwood forest to eat our sack lunches, then decided we had time to make a run out to Paradise Valley for the 2:30 lion feeding. That turned out to be quite the highlight of the day for these two critter-lovers -- the lion feeding was about as real as something like that can get with children and tourists in evidence. The lions are born and bred in captivity, and so are not wild per se, but they aren't tame or trained, either. They're penned in a large cage surrounded by common metal fencing, with the lions RIGHT THERE on the other side, inches away at times. Max, the daddy, was especially fond of terrifying the tourists and the young kids who stood close, their fingers intertwined in the metal fencing and fully available as a quick appetizer before the horse meat came. He paced back and forth, gobs of slimy drool hanging from his snarling jowls, his mane matted and thick, his huge paws landing with a heavy thud before us. The females kept a polite distance, with wise and patient looks on their faces, relaxing under the nearby shade, sometimes visited by the other male lion, Max's 4-year-old son.

Then, the food arrived. They feed them horse meat because it's the closest thing to zebra, and sometimes they toss a dead but otherwise intact rabbit to them, fur and all. We were right up against the fence and next to the feeder, who threw the chunks of horse meat over the 15 foot fence with stunning accuracy toward each lion. Max was the most aggressive and certainly the most animated eater in the bunch, roaring and growling and swatting the other lions, male or female, if they tried to take his chunk of meat. Then, as he ate, he grunted and snarled the entire time. In contrast, the ladies were quiet and demure, although completely capable of grabbing a chunk before Max got to it and running off to devour it, sometimes whole. A few times Max rushed the fence with his wild eyes, and once, he had me completely up and leaping backwards, making the crowd laugh nervously. The feeding lasted about 20 minutes and then we were all moved on for our opportunity to pet the baby lion.

She was 7 months old and 140 pounds of solid mass and course lioness fur, but she was quite sweet, or at least, too sleepy to care as we reached in through the door and patted her hind legs and warm belly, playing with her toes, checking out her huge (clipped) claws, and poking her black foot pads. Then, on to explore the rest of the facility, which was originally built as a private trout preserve, raising Rainbow Trout from the Russian River in California. Also among the fauna were deer, some with beautiful full antlers, sweet and greedy when offered a handful of deer pellets; pigs, geese, ducks, turkeys, sheep, goats, and other farm animals. We had fun because we like animals. And this place, Paradise Valley Wildlife Park, is a family owned, beautifully landscaped property, designed for a good amount of interaction with the animals, which we found quite satisfying.

We topped off our Expensive Maori Tourist Day (even though the Paradise Valley Wildlife Park wasn't exactly a Maori event) with an evening dinner and performance at Te Po. A series of traditional greetings and performances preceded a delicious Maori dinner, and the evening concluded with a tram ride to the nearby geyser, which spouts 20 or so times a day, rising to over 12 meters. We arrived as the sun was setting, and by the time the geyser had built up enough energy to spew, it was dark, with lights illuminating the steamy plume against the deep blue-black sky. Quite fantastic, and the end to a very satisfying albeit smelly day.

Today we packed up our little cabin at the Rotorua Thermal Holiday Park and took a leisurely drive through the countryside, stopping in Tirau, a little town that has an obsession with corrugated metal. We noticed it a few days earlier on our way to Rotorua, but it wasn't until we got to the end of town that we consciously realized that the entire place was an homage to corrugation. So I made a mental note to stop and take photos on the way back through. Turns out it all started with the guy who built the giant corrugated lamb. I met his daughter at the clothing store, housed inside the building-sized lamb, where we were looking at t-shirts. She said her father, who was a bit eccentric, originally built the lamb for their retail clothing and souvenir business. Then, he built the giant dog next door, and it went from there. Now the entire small town cheerfully sports corrugated signs, roofs, buildings, yard art, or something creative made from the awkward material. There was even a giant corrugated shepherd in front of the church at the end of town, who I mistook as a Corrugated Jesus until I read the sign. The beautiful corrugated poppies on the facade of the Poppy Cafe were my favorites.

Today we spent a happy few hours in beautiful Middle Earth, with a perfect visit to Hobbiton, where all three Lord of the Rings movies were filmed. As everyone in the area knows and is excitedly reminding us, they're getting ready to film "The Hobbit" very soon, so the Shire has been brought back to life again. I can't say any more than that, nor can we show any pictures, because we signed something very somber and threatening about not revealing anything more or we'd be sued, or dismembered or something. But the visit was delightful, on a warm sunny day that couldn't have been more Shire-like, and we had a nice time. We stopped at a used bookstore and found all 3 books, so I'm now (again) halfway through the Fellowship of the Ring. We've read the series before, many times, and in fact I was nerdy enough in junior high school that my girlfriends and I learned some of the Elvish script so we could write each other secret notes in class. Sort of lost that talent over the years, sadly.

We're now in a campground about 5 km east of Matamata, being nibbled on by tiny midgees or something, with a lovely countryside view and the ever-present sound of the cicadas in the trees. Too tired to camp-cook tonight, we're munching on roast beef sandwiches, the Thursday sandwich special at the local Subway. Tomorrow, back to Auckland for a week, where we pick up our camper van on the 1st of February and head for the South Island. We'll take some time to get the photo gallery up to date. Amazing place, this New Zealand, and we haven't even scratched the surface.