Woke up real early today at 8am today to visit one of the local churches over here at Rotorua. Found them on Google and it being a Sunday I thought to myself why not? This church is called Elim Church of Rotorua.
The people there are real friendly, with each person being super interested in whatever I shared. Quite a small church though, a little less than hundred people. They sang the same contemporary Christian music I'm used to. Their welcome gift consisted of this amazing chocolate and a few candy canes because it's Christmas!!!
Headed back to the hostel to put down the chocolate because I'm planning it for night snack. Walked over to Pizza Hut and got another large NZD11.89 pizza to eat for lunch (and hopefully dinner). Got my usual 1.5L water and headed towards Whakarewarewa Forest, also known as Redwood Forest.
This particular path stinks to high heavens too. Couldn't really find a nice spot to consume my pizza because everywhere is hot geysers and smelly sulphur. Chose a nice clean patch of grass behind a factory and sat down under a tree. Ate my pizza as I enjoyed the view and the feel of picnicking in New Zealand. My view as shown.
Used a Google recommended shortcut to cut myself some time. After an hour's walk, I reached the base of Whakarewarewa Redwood Forest. There were a few different trails to try and I chose the toughest one. 11.5km, 3.5 hours, seems crazy enough. Started my hike at this beautiful forest with super tall trees and crazy steep hills.
After about an hour of what seems like a million steps, I reached the supposed "lookout point". It was pretty meh. Can't really see much so didn't really take any pictures of myself with the view. The weather is very cooling under the shades of the trees. But when I step out into the sun, it was so crazy burning. The supposed lookout looks like this:
Went on up somemore and the heat became unbearable. Had to take off my windbreaker and even my shirt (there was nobody there to judge). Reached this highway and thought I was lost. The only path I was walking on led me there. Looked quite hard for the next path and found it hidden under a bush. Okay LOL, almost had to retrace.
Well after this stairway to heaven, I actually got lost. My path suddenly disappeared and the ground became softer. For what's worth, the correct path have to be hard as rock because of the constant traverse by human feet. If it's softer than usual, something's wrong. After a quite a long while in the hot sun comparing maps in Android split-view mode, I found the correct path hidden at the side of a main road. Dang how can people even spot it?
At the 2-hour mark, I was beginning to go downhill. Dang where was my lookout spot for me to take selfies? Sigh quite disappointed. Found this super cool stunt cycling location though. Many kids were playing with it and I rested my legs there for quite a while. Observed that the local kids there really love cycling!
Came back down and I cleared the whole route in under 3 hours. Not so easy but it was an achievement for me. This is one of the most fun adventure on my trip yet. Feels really nice being able to just simply explore a new place like a kid with a new Pokemon game. With that, I cleared Rotorua as much as I could by foot. Walked back via the main road for another hour to the city centre.
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