Off to explore Rotorua

Just up and about and after a short business call we are off to explore Rotorua.

I checked the web this morning and I see that there are still major flooding problems in Queensland; we were lucky to get out when we did. The weather forecasters are saying that the area of Queensland affected by the flooding is larger than France and Germany combined!! Australia is huge.

Back from our visits to the Whakarewarewa geothermal area, geysers, mud pools and lots of Maori dancing. Good fun and very interesting.

We later drove around for a while through the Waiketi valley and took the plunge in the thermal baths.

Very nice dinner tonight in Rotorua with a glass or three of very good Hawkes Bay Pinot Noir.

Off to Lake Taupo and Napier in the morning.

Sorry about the wrong orientation of the beach photo with sharks but I have given up trying to rotate it - too many glasses of Pinot Noir?? Anyway this is from the front page of the New Zealand Herald today and whilst we did not swim from this beach on the Coromandel yesterday, we did swim from others very close. I'm reliably informed that the sharks were deterred from the beaches where we swam by the presence of city lawyers!!