Day 370: Geothermal Wonderland

As our last full day in New Zealand, today's mission was volcanoes volcanoes volcanoes!

Our first stop was the Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland. This large park includes several geothermal lakes, including Champagne Pool and the Lady Knox Geyser. The geyser erupts once per day at 10:15am, which we unfortunately missed. We still got to enjoy the rest of the park and were amazed by the Champagne Pool. At 213ft, it's the deepest geothermal pool in all of NZ.

The next stop on the drive was Rotorua, which is a town inside the crater of a super volcano (like Yellowstone). We found a gondola park that had wine tasting and the gondola ride as a package deal. We tried some local NZ wine while enjoying a scenic view of the crater.

On the gondola ride down, we jump into a car with another older man. Ends up he works at the park and was chatting us up to get our opinion. We end up talking about mountain biking and he asks us if we know about Crank Works. Kieran gets to hilariously answer, "Uh yes, my cousin actually kind of owns it." The guy is like Darren Kennard?!?!

Ends up the Rotorua park is the first stop on the Crank Works mountain biking tour and this guy probably was the event manager. He says to tell Darren hello and got a picture of him and Kieran.

We spend remaining time picking up souvenirs to bring home; Doyle and Kieran also wanted to stop by KFC because they had this summer bucket hat deal and they just had to have it.

Spots:
Geothermal Wonderland
Rotorua
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