Polly put the kettle on...

I love hot water. When you've been travelling as long as I have, and some people travel a lot longer (two years is the record amongst those I've met), you come to appreciate the small things in life. Things like hot water. Do you realise just how much hot water you use? Every time you wash your hands, cook food (in water, obviously) or make a cup of tea (yes, mum I'm talking to you). Not to mention washing your clothes, heating your house (what did you think was in those radiators?) and having a shower. Nowadays, we tend to take it for granted but I can still remember boiling a kettle as a child to have hot water to wash in (and I'm not ashamed of the memory).

Here in Rotorua, however, it isn't the absence of hot water that's the problem. Rather, it's the over-abundance. This whole area is one big hotspot (pun intended) of geothermal activity. That means earthquakes, volcanoes, boiling mud and hot springs. The other thing that comes with geothermal activity is geysers (how do you say it - guyzers or geezers?). Geysers are wonderful to look at and even if the water is superheated as it comes out, it's almost cold if it sprays over you and it leaves your skin feeling soft (maybe because it's slightly acidic or alkali, depending on the other minerals around, and has taken the top layer of your skin off!). The hot springs are more varied. Some are so hot that they will take more than the top layer off if you're not careful. Others, however, are more gentle. Like the one I soaked my feet in yesterday or the one I'm going to bathe in tomorrow.

As well as being hot, the area is smelly. With geothermal activity comes sulphur (at least in this area) and with sulphur comes bad smells. Remember stink bombs? Sulphur. Bad eggs? Sulphur. Burnt popcorn? Sulphur. It does look pretty though and brings up many other minerals in it's wake. Thus we have bright yellow rock, orange rock, red rock, blue rock and green rock.

Unfortunately, after a while the smell gets to you. You think you've got used to it and you're enjoying the beautiful surroundings when, suddenly, BAM right across the nose comes that sulphur smell. It hasn't been too bad for me (mainly burnt popcorn) but some of the others here have been unable to eat and feel constantly nauseaous - even I was feeling queasy when I went to the local "Thermal Wonderland". Maybe they should market it as a weight loss centre!