cracked up to be

Once again, North Island has disappointed.

Not the Wai-o-Tapu Volcan-O-matic Thermiferous Wonder Zone or whatever it likes to call itself. Not that at all; though pricey it's fascinatingly thermally volcanic and has a nice red-shored blue steaming pool thing as featured on the cover of the guide book and many many many don't-walk-across-this signs with large, bubbling sulphurous pools directly behind them which people would probably never even consider walking into were it not for the suggestion of the sign which makes them wonder what might happen if they did decide to cross the barrier. There's a nice big crater which makes a noise like a giant kettle, lots of large and flat things which bubble and smell, lots of nice spiderwebs with droplets of water collecting on them (and some without), lots of rising-steam-against-trees views catching the morning sun, lots of dense treestuffs, lots of nice little rickety walkways, some (free) bubblingmud pools which are entertainingly like watching hipposespotamus and the obligatory geyser. I wasn't expecting much of this seeing as it's deliberately activated every day and sounds like a tourist-grabbing "OOOOOHbackonthetourbusplease" sort of thing but it was reasonably good: Everyone goes and sits round some wooden benches in front of a slightly steaming cone. A bloke comes over and sticks some soap powder down the spout then rattles off some background whilst the cone starts to froth. Shortly afterwards the cone then goes mental and starts spouting steam thirty feet into the air. Most people buggered off after about ten minutes (apart from the irritating people with their irritating whining children who sat right in front of the barrier for half an hour) but a few of us stuck with it until it reduced to end-of-the-espresso-cycle puttering and spurting after about an hour though with the occasional resumption of limited mentalism which looked as if it might carry on for a bit yet. Fortunately we'd arrived early enough to have finished the park by this time so we didn't have to trundle back when it was probably packed with people getting in the way of pictures.

Not the journey from Rotorua to Auckland which featured more nice volcanic lumpiness, cows, sheeps, the odd sight of a train going by directly adjacent to the road without any sort of fence or anything, more of NZ's nice and frank if-you-speed-you're-a-twat-who's-going-to-crash-and-die campaign postering, some nice garlic bread stuff and the vast sense of relief when we finally escaped the extremely horrible rush-hour traffic and arsewit road-junction-organisation into the hotel (thanks to which the journey included a scenic but unnecessary trundle across the bridge after the very road we needed to turn down turned out to be no-right-turn) even though the last bit was a bit fraught and we had to go back out into the traffic an hour later to get the car back to the rentalpeople and encountered the least helpful petrol-station system and attendant operatives ever even if it was mitigated slightly by seeing someone speeding out of the station without paying as we arrived.

Not the disappointing muffins and croissants which comprised my breakfast this morning, nor the lacklustre coffee in the hotel room this evening, nor the dearth of unsecured wirelessnesses anywhere near our lodgings nor the last showing of Indy IV ending just as we found the cinéma.

What disappointed me was that Zorbing looked to be shite.

When I first read of it years ago it sounded even better than bungeeing... the accompanying picture showed an untethered bloke rolling freely down a reasonable-sized hill. I thought you had the chance to attempt to run within the ball like an hamster or just allow yourself to be flung and bounced around inside or even attempt to steer or bounce the ball from within. It was higher on my stuff-to-do list than bungeeing.

But...

Recent reports indicated that the choice was either being harnessed inside or having some water chucked in and sliding along. The sad and cheating reality is that the whole thing takes place on a very very very short course and seems so unexciting that even the ten-year-olds we saw getting out of the balls looked bored out of their skulls. I had been looking forward to the relatively cheap guide-book-price of $45 considering the relatively high cost of bungeeing but on seeing it I'd reckoned that anything over $30 wouldn't be worth it. As the price had risen to $60 I cut my losses and decided not to spoil the vision I once saw with a depressingly mundane reality; boinging was good just to watch and everyone coming up the stairs from the river looked hyped but this was downright tedious to observe; even the tame-but-fun luge-thing in Queenstown looked more enjoyable. I feel the money was perhaps best retained. There will, after all, be another chance to boing again before leaving the country.

Apart from that everything's still really nice.