TE PUIA, ROTORUA, NZ

TE PUIA, The Geyser Park

We enjoyed a couple of hours of pure leisure this morning. Ron was considering going golfing but changed his mind due to lack of interest. So we lounged around the condo and took care of a few details. I found an email that AT&T sent to me, saying I had used more than $100 in DATA transfer. As I have not been on my phone except to send 7 text messages, which I had paid for before we left country, and to make two phone calls, I was shocked! I had locked out all push notifications entirely from every APP listed and was very careful to not incur Data transfer (because I know how expensive it can be). I didn't want any surprises? So when I found this email, I called the attached phone number and spoke to a soft voice on the other end. She told me I had used a lot of data. I asked how that could be because I don't use my phone at all? She walked me through how to shut down my data use. Apparently my Data Roaming was still "on". I asked her how much was my bill thus far. She said $297. As she wasn't interested in giving me a break, I choked it down and let it go. Can't do much from NZ anyway. Travelers beware!!

After lunch at the Mall Food Court where Ron and I put away more fried chicken, we drove over to TE PUIA, a Geyser Park with bubbling pools of mud, steam vents, geysers that blast upwards of 30 to 40 feet of steaming, boiling water more than 20 times a day. The mud pots were not so impressive because of the drought NZ has had. The January rains did not come as expected.

We went into the Kiwi exhibit. The nocturnal birds have been fooled into thinking daytime is night time due to the false lighting. Would that be called "Bird Programming"? It was still pretty dark inside the exhibit. I did manage to see one of the birds as it ran around in and out of dimly lit areas. It looked like a brown Guinea to me. I couldn't see it's 5" long beak. The others could see it better than me.

After we hit the gift shop and they took us for a few bucks, we picked up a few essentials at the local grocery market and came home. Debby fixed Tacos for dinner. Afterwards, we tossed some chairs over the fence and went down next to Rotorua Lake to watch the sun go down. It was beautiful with the Ducks and Black Swans swimming in the water.
(Note to Self: What ELSE do Ducks swim in??)
Today was a beautiful day with temperatures in the upper 70's.
I could get used to this!!