Que d'eau, que d'eau!

General McMahon, president of France in the early 20th century was left speechless by the sight of a flooded area somewhere in France.  All he could said, and all that was recorded for history, and was left to posterity as a sign that he was not that bright (and did not have much to say) was:  "que d'eau, que d'eau!"  (basically "wow, that's a lot of water")  (Side note:  Don't you wonder how France ended up with a president named McMahon?  that is beyond what this blog's point is however, so you'll just have to ask Wikipedia).
That's how I feel today - "que d'eau, que d'eau" - because, let me tell you, it rained A LOT!!!!  there are some major floods north of here,  as some storm has parked its big storm butt right over the tip of the the North Island, and is pouring water all over it! 
But we were not about to let a bit (Ok, a lot...) of rain bother us, so we still went out, although took very few pictures (because that would have involved taking the camera out in the rain....).
First thing in the morning, it was not raining very hard, so we still managed to take the boat for a soak in the hot pools that are all over this area.  This one is in a very secluded and peaceful little cove, the water is at a constant 38 Celsius (about 98 Fahrenheit), and very clear.  After a nice soak, we came back to the lodge for a luxurious breakfast, and then decided that rain (a lot of it - did I mention that it rained A LOT??) was  not going to keep us inside, but that our plans to go for a long hike in the woods would have to be cancelled.  Instead, we went to visit the buried village (think New Zealand's version of Pompei), which is the excavation site of a village that was buried when Mount  Tarawera blew it's top (literally) in 1886.   This is actually a very interesting story:  This area was  famous and touristic in the mid to late 19th century, because of the "white and pink terraces", which were these stunning  hot water pools (some white, some pink, obviously) that had been created in the last 5 centuries by hot water seeping out slowly out of the rocks.  The people around here (mostly Maori's) proclaimed them "the 8th wonder of the word" and made quite a nice living taking tourists to visit them.  Here is what the pink ones looked like:

people would bathe in them, and I would have loved to see them - but we were about 125 years too late, because when the volcano blew up, it too them along, and they are gone....  The area was devastated and about 120 people died (which is a large number, particularly if you consider how thinly populated this area still is...).
So, no terraces for us, but we can still find some nice hot pools to soak in, and, when driving around Rotorua, there are these hot spots everywhere, where, out of nowhere, steam rises (also, it really stinks of sulfur in some areas).
We also went to the Rotorua museum, learned about Maori society (very interesting in a violent kind of way), and came home - still in the rain.... however, even in the rain, this is a very pretty place, and it has large bay windows everywhere - here is one of the views from the lounge:

We had made ourselves feel better about the weather with a few drinks (and local cheeses):

 and then had a fabulous 5 course dinner:
Pumpkin soup with parsnip chips (amazing soup!)


Local prawns with avocado tomato salad (the prawn taste like no shimp i've ever had, really unique - and good)

 Then a "refresher"  (what we french people would call a "trou Normand") of Gin and Tonic sorbet (soon to become Claire favorite ice cream flavor.....)

 We also had local rack of lamb, but it was too good and we ate it too fast to take a picture.
And desert.

 It's still raining, but things could be worse......