This morning at 8:00 am we docked in Tauranga, a harborside city in the Bay of Plenty. At breakfast, we heard of an offshore volcano near here had tragically erupted a few days ago. A large eruption occurred on White Island or Whakaar as it is also known at 2:11 pm on 9 December 9th, which resulted in 22 fatalities. Twenty-five survivors were injured, many critically and with severe burns. Forty-seven tourists and tour staff were reportedly on the island when it erupted. A second eruption closely followed the first. During the night, we had passed within 30 kilometers of the volcano.

      
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Once we’d finished breakfast, it was off the ship and onto our tour bus bound for a day in Rotorua. Thirty minutes into our drive, our driver pulled over into Mossop’s Honey parking lot. Mossop’s is a family business that has been producing and packaging top quality honeys for over 70 years. This is basically a shop selling honey products with a live bee display at the rear of the premises. Made a couple of purchases before we reboarded the tour van.

      
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Another 45 minutes or so brought us to Kuirau Park at Rotorua. There were several walkways we took through the park to see the crater lake, natural boiling, bubbling and steaming geothermal action mud pools and hot springs all set in a manicured setting dotted with flower beds and native flora. Kuirau Park is located within an easy walk from the city center.

             
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From the mud pools, it was a short walk to the thermal foot bath. Shoes off, feet in and enjoyed the experience. As a bonus, an older Japanese fellow from our tour pulled out his reed pipe and treated us to a wonderful musical interlude.

      
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Next stop was Whakarewarewa - The Living Māori Village where we stopped for lunch at the Geyser Café. We never toured but enjoyed our Hangi Pie.

    
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From the Village, we drove back to the Rotorua Museum and Government Gardens. The museum is housed in the former Bath House building which was opened in 1908. The Bath House is a half-timbered building that has been called the most impressive Elizabethan Revival building in New Zealand. Unfortunately, the museum was closed in 2016 due to not meeting New Zealand earthquake standards but it’s an impressive structure regardless.

The Government Gardens is a public park, partly laid out as gardens, located beside Lake Rotorua. Located within the Gardens is Rachel Spring, a historic alkaline hot spring. The spring is also known as Whangapipiro, which was its original name given by the Arawa people. The therapeutic water of the spring has a natural antiseptic action due to its alkaline nature.

         
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After a short wander through the park, we again boarded our van and made our way to the Redwoods – Whakarewarewa Forest on the outskirts of Rotorua. The forest is most well-known for the network of mountain biking and walking tracks and for the magnificent stand of Californian Coast Redwoods. The tallest redwood in the forest stands at 75 meters tall.

A feature of the forest is the canopy walkway suspended between the trunks of the redwood trees. The walkway consists of 23 bridges connecting 22 redwood trees, and is suspended 12 meters above the ground. Above the walkway, wooden lantern sculptures are also suspended between the tall tree trunks.

      
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Our last stop of our tour was at Kiwi Fruit Country located halfway back to Tauranga. After sampling fresh kiwi, it was back into the van for a half hour run to our waiting ship.

       
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Arriving at the cruise ship dock at 3:30 pm, we immediately went aboard as it had been a long day touring and we were tired. Our ship departed for Auckland, our final port, at 7:00 pm.