Last night we set an alarm so that we’d wake up/get up well before the checkout time of 10 am (well at least that what we guessed the checkout time was). I set it for 8.30 am…and even though the alarm went off and we got up around that time I still wasn’t really ready at 10.00 am because we managed to Skype Emma’s parents as well as Kay (her sister) and her children (Kays not Emmas)! Therefore we checked out and went back to the shower block to wash and get dressed etc.
The drive to Rotorua from Thornton Beach wasn’t very long; it took us just over an hour. We did drive around a little bit within Rotorua before finding the hotel (The Grand Hotel: not as grand as it sound!). Once throwing our stuff into the room (it was only 11.30 am) we trundled off to find ice cream and the Rotorua Museum…and of course we got lost!
The idea was to walk right up to the lake and sit and eat our ice creams there, walking around the lake on a path that would lead us to the museum. This was all going well until we accidentally took a longer path, which took us on a bush detour. It was all fun though, as we saw lots of interesting wildlife and some steaming mud vents!
The Rotorua Museum is housed in a building with a rich history: The Bath House.
It opened in 1908 and was designed to look like European Spas of the day. It was the New Zealand Government’s first major investment into tourism and the building is set within a lovely garden, they are called The Government Gardens. In the museum you can look back at how the old baths worked and learn a little about the various different treatments that were on offer, such as; electrodes could be placed within the bath water, giving the ‘patient’ a sort of light shock therapy, mud baths for the skin, colonic irrigation was on offer, though I cannot really imagine what that was like in the 1900’s. Also you could bath in the sulfurous waters, which could make you faint of become nauseous!
They used to send wounded soldiers here for their convalescence: I thought it funny that at one point my dad had to go to a convalescent home when recovering from a severed Achilles Tendon. It’s funny to think that in days gone by he might have ended up somewhere like this!
There is a small viewing platform on the roof where you can see right out over the lake and over the town. It was lovely.
Currently in the museum there is a display of New Zealand fashion from the 70’s. Sadly we weren’t allowed to take photos. The items on show were amazing, such as green sparkled jumpsuits and flared denim dungarees as well as ‘Womens Liberation’ badges and funky men’s suits.
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