Rotorua - also known as Sulphur City - is one of New Zealand's primary attractions, with its geothermal activity, hissing randomly venting steam, chromatic yellow/orange streaks of mineral crystals in deep, bubbling pools, wisps of stinky sulphur smoke drifting among the trees and boiling grey mud creating art nouveau visions. But that's not all...

One of Rotorua's hot, sulphurous pools.

The Rotorua region, with its lakes, rivers and forests in addition to volcanic activity, has developed into a major tourist hub offering a vast range of sporting opportunities that only the ever-active Kiwis could imagine, from the normal - hiking, mountain biking, white water rafting - to the less usual - bungee jumping, sky diving, jet boating - to the positively mad adrenalin activities - zorbing (bouncing down a hillside encased in a transparent plastic ball), luge (kind of toboggan) racing down a mountainside and scree-sliding into a volcano, among others things...

Champagne Pool, Wai-O-Tapu Thermal Wonderland, 20 minutes south of Rotorua.

And Rotorua's not just about seeing bubbling mud, tourists can also take mud baths and soak in therapeutic spa waters.

A Maori Culture Village experience, Rotorua.

Touristy and artificial but nevertheless interesting is the Maori experience around Rotorua where tourists can visit different mock-traditional villages and see housing, singing, dancing, listen to legends and taste the indigenous cuisine.

Rotorua Bath House, 1908. In the City of Rotorua and now a museum.
© Margojh

Getting there: Rotorua is in the centre of new Zealand's North Island, 230 kms (140 miles) south-east of Auckland, and 80 kms (50 miles) north of Taupo.

Craters of the Moon, Taupo, still steaming.

River boarding (just using the power of the flow and a static anchor, no motors involved!), Taupo. Next, Tongariro Pictures.

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