Day 10: Rotorua in the sun, a little

We woke today to no rain, some patches of clear sky and a desire avoid crowds. So, keen to take advantage of any and all breaks in the weather, we left the motel just before 9am to get to the Skyline Gondola 🚠 that takes us to (close to) the top of Mt Ngongotaha, to go luging. A luge turned out to be like a three wheeled go-cart that you get to scoot back down the mountain (really just a hill) on, and the catch a chair lift back to the top to go again.

We bought tickets for three rides each and it was heaps of fun. Afterwards we had a coffee and milkshakes in the cafe and did their short nature walk. People also come here to mountain biking, zip lining, slingshots (see video) and other fun stuff.

We certainly made a good call getting there early. When we arrived there was us and three other people doing the luge. Once we finished our nature walk it looked like there were 100s all queued up waiting their turns.

After we caught the gondola back down to the car park, we drove the short distance to the city centre to visit the free Sulphur Bay Wildlife Refuge (yes, it was as smelly as it sounds) and the Kuirau Park free foot baths.

From there we found a laundromat to do some much needed washing and then went back to the motel by about 2.30pm.

Again we had great timing in that series of activities because shortly after we got back it started pouring rain and kept raining for the rest of the afternoon. So we got to know motel room even better!!Read more