Slow morning with our plunger coffee

As we get peckish, we get ready and head out to explore if we can find any cheap eats for lunch

We do struggle but find Cocoffee Takeaway for coffee, pancakes and burger

After, we wander towards Lake Rotorua as there’s a walk through the thermal activity, starting at Sulphur Point – it’s rather stinky!

Bizarre to us how a whole town has been built within an active volcanic caldera

We walk all the way to a Google Maps listed Geothermal Walking Track which actually takes you onto where part of the lake has dried up at the moment

The weather turns a little and we make our way back into the town centre, not before buying a couple of t-shirts, where we catch the number 1 bus

This takes us 10 minutes out of town to Skyline Rotorua which is an attraction that takes you up the side of the Mount Ngongotaha Scenic Reserve in a gondola to get a view of the town and lake (see the featured image)

Here is also home to the Volcanic Hills winery which only costs a little extra on the gondola ticket itself

We get to trial five of the wines they produce, with grapes being grown in various locations across New Zealand, before taking the gondola down and a bus back to the city

Arriving around 5 pm, we have time to enjoy a couple rounds of happy hour at the Pig & Whistle again

Every Thursday night, there’s a night food market hosted over part of Tutanekai Street so we go hunt for some food

Nothing overly entices us so we go check out whether Rotorua Social has another meal deal on; it doesn’t but we stay for a jug before going back to the night market

We settle on sharing noodles with sweet & sour pork as well as chicken green curry and pad thai

After this busy day, we call it a night and head back to Haka House