A trip to Rotorua & Lake Taupo

I’ve been to Rotorua and Lake taupo about a week ago. It was really a wonderful journey and amazingly beautiful place so far that I have visited located at the heart of the North Island of New Zealand. On the way to the destination, we stopped by at the Hamilton Garden. Since the admission is FREE (susah nak dpt benda free kat NZ ni J) so we should grab the chance hehee… : -). At Hamilton Garden, you can see various types of garden including Italian, Japanese, Chinese, English, American, Indian, and New Zealand garden. They created the landscape in such a way to present typical garden in those countries. (Dlm byk2 garden tu kan, NZ garden yg paling tak lawa...mcm ala-ala semak samun dgn pokok2 fern yg tumbuh liar)...Anyways, if you are flower lovers, you should visit the Hamilton Garden. Finally we went to the Rose Garden where all kinds of roses are available there. Lawa betul…Ciptaan Tuhan semuanya indah..subhanaAllah..!

Next, on the way to the Lake Taupo, we also stopped by along the road definitely to take photos of the mountains, sheep and cows. (Thanks to the driver! We really had an amateur driver who always willing to stop the car whenever we want to take picture. Hehee..) These are among my favorite pictures:

At Taupo, we visited the Huka Prawn Park. It was the only New Zealand’s Prawn Park located on the banks of beautiful Waikato River. Some of the attractions are prawn fishing, trout feeding and a geothermal foot bath. The ticket is quite expensive though, so we decided to leave the place and went to the Huka falls. Yuhuuu…!! I love waterfalls!! See this picture of the Huka falls:

(Once again we could not afford to join the exciting HukaFalls Jet boat because it was too expensive. $95 per pax.. Mahal ma..)

At Rotorua there are lots of geothermal area some of which are free (tempat yg tak berape best is normally free lah) but we choose to enter the Craters of the Moon which cost us only 5 dolars. As the name implies, it’s really a hot ground surface (wonder why we Malaysian pegi tempat panas mcm tu, mmg panas tak tipu punye!). After all, we really appreciate the stunning landscape that discharges a lot of steam despite of the amazing smell of sulphur (huhuu like the “rotten egg smell” tu..). It takes us about 45 minutes to complete the loop to see all the craters. Not too bad!

Next, we continue our journey to the Lake Taupo. It was indeed amazingly beautiful scenery of a huge lake with Mount Ruapehu as a background. This is really a breathtaking view that I have seen in New Zealand thus far. SubhanaAllah 33x.

On the second day of our trip, we visited Wai O Tapu at Rotorua. The entrance ticket is $27.5 for each adult. It is quite expensive though but I tell you, you will find it really worth to spend that much to see all the beauty of Allah's creation. We were told that the geyser will explode at quarter past 10, so we hurriedly bought the ticket and find the parking. Alhamdulillah. ..It was really a nice weather and Alhamdulillah we were able to take the following picture when the geyser exploded:

After seeing the geyser, we went to the thermal area of Wai-O-Tapu to see the collapsed craters, and cold and boiling pools of mud. At this place, again you have to bear with the “bau telur busuk” again or a.k.a “hydrogen sulphide. The thermal area was so wonderful where you can see range colorful pools of mud such as orange, green, yellow etc.. Each pool has its name and the color is associated with the type of mineral elements it contains. We were lucky that we went there on sunny day. People said that the colour of the water in the pool change according to the weather.

Wai-O-Tapu is not the only thermal area at Rotorua. Te Puia, was another attraction at Rotorua where you can also have a look at Maori’s village besides the thermal. We also missed the opportunity to enjoy the Gondola skyline, and Agrodome show. InsyaAllah will be there next time!

See more pictures at http://www.dropshots.com/ema017

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Dari meja pengarang :-)