The striking half-timbered building inside the Government Gardens is something you would, and should, not miss. The Bath House is a former spa. Now Rotorua Museum calls it home. What is looks like interior wise I can’t say much about, as I decided not to step inside. Instead I walked around the gardens to have a look at the other buildings, the pools, steam vents, a totem pole(!), and seniors enjoying a game of pétanque – one of the sports the grounds have facilitated. I even spotted the occasional wildlife, a couple of Australasian swamphens. The gardens are of a fairly big size, and not super interesting, so I decided to just cover a part of it, before heading further along the shores of Lake Rotorua.
More on Rotorua.
Wow, that looks beautiful! I didn’t know New Zealand could grow Palm Trees! I would have expected it was too far south! I love the nod to the indigenous populations with the totem pole!
Love the timbered building too! Well, Rotorua is on the same latitude, just south, not north, as the south of France and Spain, so I wasn’t too surprised. The totem pole is a gift from Canada.
That totem pole is awesome!! I’ve seen a few in Alaska but it would be cool to see a New Zealand one in person!
I must admit I didn’t think too much about the totem pole, until you guys started commenting on it. So I did a little research, and it turned out to be a Canadian one, gifted to Rotorua in 1990 for the NZ sesquicentennial. Apparently done by a master carver, so no wonder it looks good 🙂 Now I am happy I got to see one 🙂
Beautiful! Great photo of the swamphen, what a colorful bird! The totem pole made me feel like I was in Canada for a second, interesting how similar it is to the ones I saw there. Thanks for sharing #WanderfulWednesday
First I didn’t think the swaphen was real, because it didn’t move an inch. Like colourful birds 🙂 First totem pole I’ve seen!