Rotorua/Tongariro: More rain in the heart of the North Island, but fun of all sorts to be found nevertheless

New Zealand is supposedly not just a beautiful country, but also the ultimate backpacker country: There's heaps to do and see (if the weather lets you), there's as many nice hostels as opportunities to earn some money on the side, either with seasonal work like fruitpicking or to at least earn your accomodation with a few hours of work each day.
That sounded pretty good and after some organizing we finally managed to find a nice little motel in Rotorua where we could help out in the garden or aournd the house for a couple of hours each day for accomodation and food. And it turned out to be a great choice: We got a great room (with even greater heating!), good advices from our "bosses" Jason and Emma what to do and see around Rotorua (Especially free stuff) and we also got to spend some evenings with the whole family playing poker (thank God only for chips, not for money...).
As Rotorua is one of the North Island's main tourist spots there*s an abundance of stuff to do and see, Maori cultural events and sites (and a combination of both) are to be found pretty much everywhere, just as are geysirs and hot springs in all sorts of temepreatures and entrance fees. Oter possibilities in Rotorua include hikes and bike trips as well as rafting over a 7m high waterfall which apparently is the maximum height for a waterfall on a rafting trip (Another piece of useless information you can use at your next dinner party ;-)... ). All the outdoor-stuff was certainly nice to have, however, as the weather still getting any better, we had to skip all that (or save it for our next visit, as we like to put it), not to mention that neither of us really felt the need to go down a waterfall in a little raft while is bloody outside and water temperatures are bloody freezing. The only outdoor thing that we finally managed to do during a few hours of almost-sunshine was a quick dip into Kerosene Creek which might sound kind of gross, but it's actually the only thermal water in the area you can jump in for free.
Not for free, but definitely worth it was "Haka-World", a two-hour course about the "Haka", a war dance that the Maori used to perform to "get in the mood" for battle. Today it's still performed by the "All Blacks" New Zealand's Rugy national team, before every game to get themselves mentally ready for "battle" while at the same time telling their opponents that they're in for a serious ass-whooping. Of course you also get to perform the haka yourself at the end of the course, in full warrior outfit (or warrior princess, if you're a girl), with paint-on tatoos, weapons, the bamboo-skirt-thing that I don't know the name of and even a maori-house in the background for the pictures and the video you can of course purchase to show mom and dad what a proud warrior they have raised ;-) Unfortunately, to protect the server of this site from an overload and our dear readers from dying of laughing, we'll not include the video here. But if you have no idea what a haka might look like, check www.youtube.com and search for "haka All Blacks".
Even despite the bad weather Rotorua was still a great stop and thanks to the whole work-for-accomodation thing a cheap one for that.Our next New Zealand highllight was supposed to be the famous Tongariro Crossing, an 8-hour-trek through the "volcanic wonderland", as the Lonely Planet calls it, of the Tongariro nationalpark. However, as the "supposed to" already indicates the weather messed our plans up once more because it raining cats and dogs when we arrived there and the temperatures felt like it would switch to snow any minute which it didn't but the mountains tops were covered in snow anyway, so now crossing for us. The hostel itself was a nice place, with room for 200 guests but only ten present on the night we were there, and seriously shitty heating. But hey, sleeping in four layers of clothing, two sleeping bags and two duvets was kind of an adventure. And the owner was so proud the next morning of his great heating that had actually brought up the temperature to a whooping 13° during the night... But apparently he had invested the money he had saved on heating in guitars, with three acoustic and one electric guitar plus amplifier in the living room, which is definitely a ten for coolness in my book ;-) And at least the next morning the weather gods showed some sympathy and lit up the truly amazing landscape for a couple of hours, some hiking and approximately 2876 fotos.
Still, we had made our final decision about our future route already the night before if not sooner: The North Island had had its chance, we hadn't come to New Zealand just to watch the rain fall in unison with the amount of money in our bankaccounts.So now it's off to the hopefully sunnier south. Our first stop on that way and our last one on the North Island: Wellington, New Zealand's capital.